Buckley: The Life and the Revolution that Changed America, by Sam Tanenhaus, Random House, 1,040 pages, $40
For decades, William F. Buckley Jr.—journalist, editor, novelist, television host, mayoral candidate, high society bon vivant, and former CIA agent—was the undeniable intellectual head of the American right. Until the rise of Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s, Buckley was likely the right's most genuinely popular exemplar as well: By no means restricted to the pages of National Review, the conservative magazine he founded in 1955, Buckley had a 33-year, 1,504-episode run of his TV show Firing Line and a syndicated newspaper column that at its height appeared in 350 publications.
Fewer than 20 years after Buckley's 2008 death, few influential American conservatives act as though they are more than vaguely aware that he existed, at least from how often his spirit or words are explicitly invoked. But a careful read of Sam Tanenhaus' Buckley: The Life and Revolution That Changed America, a new biography that was nearly three decades in the works, suggests that more than one contemporary right-wing figure is in many ways recapitulating Buckley's early career, whether consciously or not.
