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Right Reason
Reveals the elegant political commentator in diverse modes--assailing, analyzing, reflecting--and touching on subjects including Jesse Jackson, Reagonomics, and appreciating a certain peanut butter
Unknown Binding
First published June 3, 1985
About the author
William F. Buckley Jr.
176 books353 followersWilliam Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American author and conservative commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing style was famed for its erudition, wit, and use of uncommon words.
Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century," according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure." Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with economic libertarianism and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and US President Ronald Reagan.
Buckley came on the public scene with his critical book God and Man at Yale (1951); among over fifty further books on writing, speaking, history, politics and sailing, were a series of novels featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Buckley referred to himself "on and off" as either libertarian or conservative. He resided in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut, and often signed his name as "WFB." He was a practicing Catholic, regularly attending the traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.
Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century," according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure." Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with economic libertarianism and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and US President Ronald Reagan.
Buckley came on the public scene with his critical book God and Man at Yale (1951); among over fifty further books on writing, speaking, history, politics and sailing, were a series of novels featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Buckley referred to himself "on and off" as either libertarian or conservative. He resided in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut, and often signed his name as "WFB." He was a practicing Catholic, regularly attending the traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 13, 2025
Since William F. Buckley died in 2008, reading anything he wrote is a trip back in time - the newest stuff he wrote is, now, almost 20 years old, and a ton has changed in that time. This book takes us back 40 years, since it dates from 1985 - my older daughter was 5 that year, and now she's 45, which perhaps will give you some idea of how it seemed to me, reading this book, that I was looking back through a long tunnel at somewhere I'd been a long time ago.
But that's part of what I like about this book. I have found that I tend to prefer Bucklery's older books over his newer ones. For one thing, he seemed to recycle the same pieces in his later collections, while in the earlier ones - as here - he included items that I've not seen before. Some of what's here I have read (two or three times) in other books, but most of it was entirely new to me. And for another thing, as he got older Buckley seemed to lose the edge from his tone. He was always amusing - witty, in fact, which is something I'm probably not capable of, since I'm a certified hick - and overall I agree with his views regardless of when the book came out. But perhaps after 82 years the edge of the sword was notched and blunted, and the arm of the wielder was weary. Indeed, in an interview with Charlie Rose not long before he died, Buckley said that he was tired - which reminds me of a letter Whittaker Chambers wrote to Buckley decades before in which the man who testified against Alger Hiss speaks of weariness. I think that Buckley attained to that state, which Chambers wished he never would, and just couldn't swing the blunted sword in the old way anymore.
So going back 23 years before Buckley's death - or however many years before an older book may be - gives you the spark and flash and fire and force that deserted Buckley in his old age. And you definitely get it right here. As with all his collections there's a variety of topics...or themes...or whatever the right word is. Sometimes he's wistful, as in his mother's obituary, sometimes he's full of fire which he breathes out with fury, and sometimes he's just having fun.
But it's always the unique Buckley style. People used to focus on his "phony British accent," which in fact was a variety of the Mid-Atlantic accent that Hollywood used to require its actors to use, and on his penchant for big words (or, if not big, at least not in common use). And certainly his sound was anachronistic - who in the world was still speaking Mid-Atlantic in 2000? - and his vocabulary was extensive. But he could use short words too, and frequently did (just as Ernest Hemingway wrote some nice long sentences, regardless of the stereotype). And most of the time his unusual words (which, he was quick to point out, might be unusual to the reader, but weren't at all unusual to him) were at least somewhat graspable by heeding the context.
But his style was more than an accent (which of course isn't present in letterpress) and a plethora of polysyllables. He had a very distincitve - sometimes downright idiosyncratic - way of putting words together. I think that if you showed me a page of Buckley that I'd never read before, I'd know it was him by the end of the first paragraph, and perhaps by the end of the first sentence. Balcones Texas Pot Still Bourbon has a flavor profile that no other whisky possesses, and Buckley's writing was exactly the same - he didn't write like anyone else on earth.
And it's the way he used English that most entrances me. I agree, mostly, with his politics. But I'd read Buckley even if I disagreed with every position he ever took, just to luxuriate in that English. I'm a convinced landlubber, and have no more desire to spend five minutes, never mind weeks, on a sailboat on the ocean, than I have to endure the rack - except when I'm reading Buckley on sailing. I've read all four of his sailing books, and I'll read them again, because the way he wrote about sailing made a subject which I care nothing about, so interesting that as long as I'm reading his prose, I do care about it.
So it is here (though there are no sailing pieces in this book). I enjoy reading someone I agree with, as everyone does, but I mostly enjoy the writing itself.
But that's part of what I like about this book. I have found that I tend to prefer Bucklery's older books over his newer ones. For one thing, he seemed to recycle the same pieces in his later collections, while in the earlier ones - as here - he included items that I've not seen before. Some of what's here I have read (two or three times) in other books, but most of it was entirely new to me. And for another thing, as he got older Buckley seemed to lose the edge from his tone. He was always amusing - witty, in fact, which is something I'm probably not capable of, since I'm a certified hick - and overall I agree with his views regardless of when the book came out. But perhaps after 82 years the edge of the sword was notched and blunted, and the arm of the wielder was weary. Indeed, in an interview with Charlie Rose not long before he died, Buckley said that he was tired - which reminds me of a letter Whittaker Chambers wrote to Buckley decades before in which the man who testified against Alger Hiss speaks of weariness. I think that Buckley attained to that state, which Chambers wished he never would, and just couldn't swing the blunted sword in the old way anymore.
So going back 23 years before Buckley's death - or however many years before an older book may be - gives you the spark and flash and fire and force that deserted Buckley in his old age. And you definitely get it right here. As with all his collections there's a variety of topics...or themes...or whatever the right word is. Sometimes he's wistful, as in his mother's obituary, sometimes he's full of fire which he breathes out with fury, and sometimes he's just having fun.
But it's always the unique Buckley style. People used to focus on his "phony British accent," which in fact was a variety of the Mid-Atlantic accent that Hollywood used to require its actors to use, and on his penchant for big words (or, if not big, at least not in common use). And certainly his sound was anachronistic - who in the world was still speaking Mid-Atlantic in 2000? - and his vocabulary was extensive. But he could use short words too, and frequently did (just as Ernest Hemingway wrote some nice long sentences, regardless of the stereotype). And most of the time his unusual words (which, he was quick to point out, might be unusual to the reader, but weren't at all unusual to him) were at least somewhat graspable by heeding the context.
But his style was more than an accent (which of course isn't present in letterpress) and a plethora of polysyllables. He had a very distincitve - sometimes downright idiosyncratic - way of putting words together. I think that if you showed me a page of Buckley that I'd never read before, I'd know it was him by the end of the first paragraph, and perhaps by the end of the first sentence. Balcones Texas Pot Still Bourbon has a flavor profile that no other whisky possesses, and Buckley's writing was exactly the same - he didn't write like anyone else on earth.
And it's the way he used English that most entrances me. I agree, mostly, with his politics. But I'd read Buckley even if I disagreed with every position he ever took, just to luxuriate in that English. I'm a convinced landlubber, and have no more desire to spend five minutes, never mind weeks, on a sailboat on the ocean, than I have to endure the rack - except when I'm reading Buckley on sailing. I've read all four of his sailing books, and I'll read them again, because the way he wrote about sailing made a subject which I care nothing about, so interesting that as long as I'm reading his prose, I do care about it.
So it is here (though there are no sailing pieces in this book). I enjoy reading someone I agree with, as everyone does, but I mostly enjoy the writing itself.
November 26, 2024
Excellent collection of former columns and other writing of Buckley.
July 24, 2011
As one would expect from a collection discussing everything from Sandinistas to harpsichords this collection of letters essays and speeches ranges wildly.
I recommend a slow read to absorb each one on it's own.
An excellent buck shot of conservative thought.
I recommend a slow read to absorb each one on it's own.
An excellent buck shot of conservative thought.
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November 21, 2009None
August 4, 2012
Of all the WFB editorial anthologies. This is my favorite, probably because I most connected with the subjects from a time when I first became concerned about the world around me.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews