Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America

by Sam Tanenhaus

More than two decades in the making, the definitive biography of William F. Buckley Jr. tells the story of America’s greatest conservative and the rise and fall of the movement he led.In 1951, with the publication of God and Man at Yale, a scathing attack on his alma mater, twenty-five-year-old William F. Buckley Jr. instantly seized the public stage—and commanded it for the next half century as he led a new generation of activists and ideologues to the peak of political power and cultural influence. Ten years before his death in 2008, Buckley chose prize-winning biographer Sam Tanenhaus to tell the full story of his life and times, granting him extensive interviews, entrée to his intimate circle, and unrestricted access to his most private papers. Thus began a deep investigation into the vast and often hidden universe of Bill Buckley and the modern conservative revolution. Buckley vividly captures its subject in all his facets and phases—founding editor of National Review, syndicated columnist and TV debater, ally of Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater, mentor to Ronald Reagan, wisecracking candidate for mayor of New York, bestselling novelist and memoirist, jet-setting clubman and socialite, downhill skier and sailboat racer.Tanenhaus also explores the private and darker life of Bill secret CIA missions, complicated friendships with other prominent figures, including Richard Nixon and Watergate felon Howard Hunt, and late in life, Buckley’s lonely struggle to hold together a movement coming apart over AIDS, the culture wars, and the invasion of Iraq.Majestic in its sweep, lushly detailed, rich in ideas and argument, packed with news and revelations, Buckley is the authoritative account of an American giant and the world he made.

Genres: Biography, History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Biography Memoir, Audiobook

1040 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2025

About the author

Sam Tanenhaus is the editor of both The New York Times Book Review and the Week in Review section of the Times. From 1999 to 2004 he was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where he wrote often on politics.

His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and many other publications. Tanenhaus’s previous book, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

What to say about this book which I have been waiting to read for so long and which I was able to read before its publication day (tomorrow)? It was long and dense. In many ways fascinating and even entertaining. But it was also slow and frustrating and near maddening at times.

There is an inherent tension that is never resolved as Tanenhaus could never see the world through the eyes of a conservative and so even as he charts WFB's life he is constantly critiquing nearly everything he does and believes. He praises his writing, his generosity and his gift of friendship (but even that is offset by the deeds of his close friends and those he sought to help) but his anti-statist, anti-communist, pro free market, pro faith and freedom passions are all seen as surrounded by kooks and conspiracy theorist, by racists and con-men.

At times Buckley comes off as talented and entertaining but fundamentally as just PR and marketing for others; not someone who helped build and lead a movement. The book offers little to explain the revolution of the book's title except by way of the resentments of whites, southerners, blue collar laborers, and middle class suburbanites. The "heroes" are the experts on voting data and the politicians who skillfully used their knowledge to get elected.

The weird juxtaposition is that you finish with an understanding that WFB was famous and connected by unsure of why he was so influential and successful. The author fundamentally doesn't seem to respect the ideas Buckley cared about and so they play very little role in the story except as background for the politics and journalism.

I learned a lot from this book but was frustrated with its tone and style, and why it allocated so many pages to things that do not seem central or explanatory. I will have to wrestle with this a bit more and read others to get my thoughts together but such was my initial reaction.

[Stetson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was equally anticipating and dreading the greatly delayed arrival of Buckley's authorized biography. I was eager to see a towering 20th century figure, whose impact is widely known yet still remains understated and underappreciated, profiled in an honest, thoughtful way, yet I was concerned Tanenhaus' portrayal of his subject would be similar to Nicholas Buccola's The Fire Is upon Us* or veer into attempting to draw parallels between Buckley and the Trump phenomenon.** Tanenhaus strikes a middle course balancing praise of Buckley's charisma and wit and political accomplishments with the common left-liberal criticisms of Buckley: superficiality, bombast, mendacity, bigotry, etc.

After making it through this enormous text, I find it hard to immediately take a strong position. There are aspects of the work that I found incredibly interesting and novel (something hard to do with a well-known figure like Buckley - at least to a reader like me who is very familiar with Buckley's work and roll in modern right-wing history). Alternatively, the biography is poorly paced, rushing through Buckley later years (after the Reagan revolution). It is perhaps true that Buckley's import to political outcomes faded after this moment, but it still leaves much of Buckley's contribution, especially via National Review and his public presence, out of the book.

This is nonetheless a useful biography, though I wish Tanenhaus spent time highlighting Buckley's positive accomplishments in public interviews. Tanenhaus doesn't accurately represent his actual biographical writing on Buckley in public appearances, kindling the ambient negative caricatures in order to get left-liberals to pick up copies.

--
*In the Buccola's book, Buckley is generally characterized, at his core, as a biological racist and apologist for segregation whose later-in-life defenses of Civil Right legislation were insincere and the result of political convenience. Tanenhaus' more thorough and comprehensive biography reveals Buccola's book was sloppy smear. Buckley's racial positioning, albeit not up to Tanenhaus's uber-liberal standards, was not genuinely retrograde but rather patrician and practical. Buckley's evolution on the subject of race is also treated as genuine as Tanenhaus is able to support this with examples from Buckley life, including his treatment of interview subjects like Muhammed Ali and Jesse Jackson.

**Trump is essentially absent from the book, but Tanenhaus does dedicate a great deal of focus of Buckley's father anglophobia, antisemitism, and isolationism (e.g. "America First" positioning). Tanenhaus doesn't completely tar Buckley with these things, but clearly sees Buckley's father as an important early influence on Jr. What Tanenhaus makes less clear is how Buckley then becomes a passionate handmaiden for foreign policy positions like "rollback" which is decidedly associated with neoconservative (aka not isolationism) today. As readers, we're left to believe the evolution was simply due to Buckley's stronger opposition to communism.

[Logan Kedzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The aphorism goes that if there are seven people seated at the table, and six of them are Nazis, there are, in fact, seven Nazis at the table. This biography suggests an adjunct to that where anyone can be accused of bigotry, and anyone can be cleared of an accusation of bigotry with convincing proof, but if it keeps happening, even if the proof is always there, maybe further examination is in order?

This is a biography of the pundit William F. Buckley, Jr.. Buckley was a conservative political commentator, the epitome of pundit and total lexiconizing crush-object for anyone like me. The only thing that kept me from full blown fanboyism is my dysthemia and I am still trying to do his shtick. Starting with Buckley's first book, God and Man at Yale, the Ur-text of all books on campus controversies, he would start the National Review in his goal to create an insurgent political magazine and alternative to the more leftward high-class reporting. He would go on to host Firing Line, a political editorializing interview show that is so deeply in the genes of the modern media landscape as to be invisible, and wrote On the Right, a popular syndicated column. Buckley is the architect of the contemporary U.S. political Right, while also in so esteemed a position that he could operate as a critic of it.

Buckley has a legacy of being the adult in the room, the principled and erudite branch of the conservative party, particularly in contrast to the washed-up performers who make up the corpus of contemporary commentary. The biography dismantles all of that. It is a dry text, but it seems so out of necessity. If I understand correctly this project has been in the works for over a decade, and it shows with the sense of the need to impart volumes of information. This overrides any particular them about the subject of the biography, excluding that the author likes the Uno Reverse Card school where a virtue or vice must be followed in immediate succession by its opposite.

The author gets into Buckley's anti-Semitic and anti-Black background (via his family) and the way that the National Review and his writing projects were about pulling the Republican party further right in things like his adoration of McCarthy and hatred of Eisenhower, through to his surprising and somewhat covered up part in Watergate. Buckley's later career breaks with the consensus that put him more in the radical centrist school (much like David Brooks, whom he trained), and there is something of a running theme about how much he has changed his views as opposed to his methods. Buckley on race, and trying to discern what changed, if anything changed, is a topic for the future.

I cannot call a 1000 page book too short and still look myself in the mirror, but the closing part of Buckley's career gets a quick glance as compared to the rest, to the point that I feel it suspicious. It reads as pathos, the Cold Warrior trying to hold by moving into writing Tom Clancy fan fiction, but it also provides a thesis for his career: Buckley had shockingly crude comments about AIDS, that are then contrasted with his personal treatment of queer people and how same thought about him and his opinions as worthwhile. Like you want to be able to say that this was a person who was master at separating out the private and the political, who could perform at being a jerk while then being a square dealer after the fact. Instead, it leaves the feeling that his life is a ruse. Buckley is the swamp in a populist sense. He affirms the idea of The Establishment as a thing by virtue of the way that he was able to freely move within it. That he was also a segregationist is a feature, not a bug.

As such, the book shakes up the usual routine of him as the elevated form of pundit that would later be replaced by bombast and grift. Instead, Buckley is we have Matt Walsh at home. It is a totally different sense of profound disappointment than I expected, and not a factor of the ultimate quality of the book, though, perhaps misgivings about what the book treats insufficiently. In general, I think it a strong book as evidenced by the volume here. Faced with so many topics that could be books of their own it still manages an explanation that covers a topic like the National Review as a whole, Buckley's variability on race, or his story-worthy family in a comprehensive way.

My thanks to the author, Sam Tanenhaus, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Random House, for making the ARC available to me.

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very long (860 pages of text), yet very unbalanced biography of William F. Buckley, best selling novelist, editor of the National Review, and leader of the conservative movement.

Tanenhaus takes 791 pages to get from 1925 to 1976. The rest of Buckley's life (almost 32 years) gets only 69 pages. Immigration and Buckley's attitudes toward abortion, unions, affirmative action, "Free" trade, and the Middle east are rarely discussed. We do however get a lot about racism, Adam Powell, antisemitism, Gays, and Joe McCarthy.

Typical of Sam's approach, he rarely mentions Buckley's deep and devout Catholic faith, except to write about the "Sex abuse Scandal" of the late 1990s.

Buckley, the person, isn't described in much detail. WFB's mother, wife and son (Chris Buckley) are given a couple pages. We're told that WFB smoked and drank in the 40s, but what about after that? We're told he loved to sail, but not why. Other hobbies/activities? Not clear. Quotes from his diaries and letters are non-existant.

Nor do we get much on the inner workings of Firing Line, the Conservative movement, or National Review. Some items not addressed: Why did WFB want to sell NR to Murdoch in the early 90s? Why was O'Sullivan fired from the editorship? Why did WFB constantly hire non-conservatives for National reivew and was he upset at people like Gary Wills? What was WFB's relationship with Pat Buchanan? Or Bush 43? Or William Rusher?

One gets the impression the real motive for publishing the book, was to find some "Smoking gun" proving WFB was a bigot. Perhaps some secret membership in the KKK or diaries and letters full of Anti-Jewish remarks. However, all Sam could find was WFB's father ran a newspaper in South Carolina supporting segregation in the 1950s.

Sam does get one thing right. WFB was no populist. He found George Wallace "repulsive" and loved Henry Kissinger. While WFB took a Coulter-like pleasure in poking "The Establishment" - he ultimately stood with the Establishment, not against it. Had the NYT's given WFB a place on its Op-ed page, made him their "Conservative Gadfly", National Review would've closed down the next day.

Probably the best parts of the book are his discussion of WFBs life up to age 26, and the WFB-Gore Vidal relationship. He shows how Vidal (and Jayne Meadows) lied about Buckley vandalizing an Espiscopalian church in 1944.

Interesting factoid: Bush was WFB's 2nd choice in 1980, and first choice in 1988. He also supported Ford choosing Rockefeller as his VP.

[MikePeterS · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the July/August 2025 edition of Foreign Affairs Magazine, Charles King, reviewing Sam Tanenhaus’s “Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America,” wrote of the oft-forgotten but significant contribution William F Buckley Jr. made to modern conservative cultural and political currents—now seen in its most recent form as MAGA.

Given my recent exploration of political science and a desire to understand the history of conservatism in America, this was a book I was immediately intrigued to check out. I was interested to know how one man, whom I had never heard of, redefined conservative politics and branding.

Admittedly, I did no more research about the book and immediately ordered it when I found it was on sale. Little did I know, this was not a quick summary of Buckley’s main contributions to the movement; this is a full-fledged, from conception to death, biography of this man. As daunting a task reading a 900 page biography about a 1900s conservative commentator is, I relinquished myself to Tanenhaus’s comprehensive and detailed account of Buckley’s life.

Needless to say, Buckley, like all men and women, was complicated. His public-facing politics often flew in the face of the tolerance towards his private relationships. Despite the “good will” shown towards the black folks working at his parents’ estate during childhood to his secret-keeping of colleagues’ homosexuality at National Review, Buckley found himself embroiled in a defense of segregation during the Civil Rights era and radical, almost Holocaustian, measures during the AIDS epidemic. Not a great look.

Aside from these severe blunders, clearly Buckley changed the way conservatives interact with American culture at large. He showed that politics flows downstream from culture, and so that’s where folks ought to exert their energies. Buckley did try to test the waters of electoral politics when he ran for Mayor of New York City in 1965, but he found his true calling in commenting from afar on the political questions at hand.

This book, for me, was a great opportunity to do a deep dive into American politics from 1930-1990 through the lens of one man’s life. But, to my original thought when first wanting to read this book, it wasn’t just ONE man who lead to the contemporary conservative movement. No doubt, Buckley had a gargantuan influence, with connections across various levels of government, culture, and history, but at the end of the day he was one player among many. One will amongst the chaotic forces of history and events and circumstances. Tolstoy’s model continues to stand.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fair and detailed overview of the life and times of WFB, containing pretty much everything you could possibly want to know about this towering, ubiquitous, and strangely ephemeral figure (a public intellectual whose reputation has become posthumous two decades before they died…many such cases).

Tanenhaus, who authored a similarly comprehensive account of Whittaker Chambers’ life that was a cornerstone of my National Review-reading rightoid early 20s, does yeoman’s work here, apportioning praise and criticism as fairly as one can imagine under the circumstances. The book contains some truly excellent assessments of Buckley’s dashed-off nonbooks and quickie columns — he would proudly cop to both things — as well as a lot of grappling with Buckley’s far-right views on homosexuality, many homosexual friends, and the assorted rumors about him.

Robert Caro on Robert Moses or Boswell on Johnson it ain’t, but highly recommended nevertheless.

[Steve McFarland · Rating 3 out of 5]

worth the read for how James Baldwin kicked his ass

[Boone Ayala · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4?

This is a really fun book, and if you think you’d like to read 860 pages about the life of William F. Buckley, you’re probably right. What it is not is a terribly edifying book.

What takes the book down a notch for me is the mismatch of my own expectations. I was interested, I realize, in a history of the conservative movement using the intellectual life of William F. Buckley, Jr. as a lens. There is some of that in here. But Tanenhaus here does for Buckley what Buckley supposedly enjoyed about Tanenhaus’s biography of Whittaker Chambers: that book got “‘Whittaker off that damned pumpkin patch’ - that is, [it was] less about Chambers the HUAC and courtroom witness than Chambers the literary man and Cold War ‘poet’.” (841). This book, subtitled “the Life and the Revolution that Changed America,” is more about the life than the Revolution. Buckley here is charming and gregarious, a phenomenal personal friend to people across the political spectrum.

I’m not certain how much of this is Tanenhaus’s own interpretive lens versus the self-conscious separation of his life and beliefs that Buckley evidently mastered. Perhaps it is impossible to tell the intellectual history of American conservatism through the life of a man who was not really a serious intellectual force. Buckley failed to write his one great work of political philosophy, The Revolt Against the Masses. He was, writes Tanenhaus, “more observer and sponsor than organizer” of the conservative movement (849). His great skill was not in his own ideas, but in his capacity for presenting the ideas of others.

With National Review, Buckley brought together many strains of postwar American conservative intellectuals and helped to create a platform for the movement. Through publicity stunts like his run for mayor of New York in 1965 and elegantly managed television performances like Firing Line, he became the charming, affable face of conservatism to the American public. His well-timed denunciation of the leaders of the far-right John Birch Society helped to set the boundaries and, perhaps, to soften the movement’s public image. Buckley, the elite, effete, charming socialite, was the conservative who could worm his way into the hearts of liberals. His genius was not in ideas, but in public relations. I wish that Tanenhaus had explored this element of Buckley’s impact in greater depth, perhaps added some numbers or liberal testimonials to show how Buckley not only tapped into stewing conservative forces but helped to legitimize them. The history of a journalist which doesn’t explore his impact on readers cannot help but feel incomplete. In a word, the AUDIENCE RESPONSE to Buckley is what I think is missing here.

The impression one gets in Buckley is of a man riding astride historical forces that he does not really control, a sponsor and observer of a movement that he did not really build. At its worst, the book reads like Forrest Gump, a narrative of a man who repeatedly finds himself present at momentous historical events but who is on their periphery. Yet Forrest Gump is fun, and Buckley’s life certainly makes for fascinating and adventurous reading. It’s also fast-paced. Tanenhaus’s style has the breezy confidence of the professional journalist - I soared through this 860 page tome, and it was a pleasure to read throughout. It was just very different from what I expected, partly because I didn’t understand its subject, and partly because the focus was too narrowly on Buckley the man and not enough on his impact. Tanenhaus clearly cares deeply for his subject, and the acknowledgements make clear the bonds of friendship (if not love) which he built up with the Buckley family over the past 35 years. But perhaps he was too close, too charmed by Buckley the man to let himself step back and center Buckley’s influence. Tanenhaus cannot resist the delightful anecdote, the charming witticism, the shenanigans of high-society, but he does not try to give these things historical or explanatory significance in Buckley’s life or movement. If you are looking for a deeper explanation of conservative intellectual history, this is not the place for it.

In the end, this book was more sizzle than steak - perhaps the most worthy tribute to the life of a dilettante.

[Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d been looking forward to this book for years before it released. Listening to Tanenhaus interviews where he was happy to talk history but not to commit to any release date. When announced, it was preorded and the street date was regularly double-checked in anticipation.

Well, it lived up to expectations. I can’t think of what else one would want from a biography. Always familiar, often compassionate, and rarely uncritical; the book truly walks through the life and times with such great detail and insight. As someone who reads a lot of 20th century American history, there were constant details that colored so many areas you think you know. It earns every page of the length.

[David Hymas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and lengthy look at Buckley’s life and, to a lesser extent, the conservative revolution that he led. The author focuses on the granular detail for decades of his life in an extensive almost daily journaling of his life up to about the mid-1970s. Curiously he then glosses over the Ford through Regan years and barely even mentions what Buckley did, if anything, through the 1990s. It’s an odd choice given the culmination of Buckley’s efforts in the Reagan victories of 1980 and 1984, which he covers very quickly, and then barely mentions the Bush I presidency. Given the incredible, at times almost inane, detail of his earlier life I was very much looking forward to the discussions from Ford on and was disappointed to have them curtailed as if the publisher had the author on a deadline that had run. All in all a solid book that loses a ⭐️ for the abbreviated ending.

[Shannan Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sam Tanenhaus created a detailed biography on the the life and career of William Buckley Jr. He begins with the history of Buckley's parent's relationships and businesses. He spend the first third of his book on his early childhood including his life in Mexico and Europe. He eventually repatriated back to the United States to the state of Maine. In Maine, he completed his primary education in the elite private schools in the area. After graduation, he matriculated at Yale and was active in debates during his time at Yale found that he had a gift. He was also a very talented writer and would go on to be the head of the National Review which gave rise to many people in the Republican Party. His Roman Catholic faith was very influential in shaping his political views, along with his the mentorship of his father. Though his family started out as Democrats, they changed over to the Republican Party as the platforms switched. The author presented Mr. Buckley in a very interesting way it was very engaging and not dull. He did emphasize other things more than others but it did not deter my enjoyment of the material in this 900+ page book. I would recommend this to fellow political junkies because the author thoroughly researched the life of William Buckley Jr down to every last detail. I would recommend this to anyone who is passionate about politics and the rise of the current Republican party platform.

[Brian S. Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

When William F. Buckley, Jr. died in February 2008, many media outlets mentioned that Sam Tanenhaus had been entrusted by the late Mr. Buckley with the task of writing an official biography. And so, every six months or so, fans of the late great would do a search for any progress on the Buckley book and find nothing, until last year, when it was finally announced that the book would be in released in January 2025 (later moved back to June).

The result is Buckley: The Life and Revolution That Changed America, a 1,040 page doorstop of a book from Random House. There is no such thing as a perfect thousand page book, because few authors can resist the temptation to wander away from the point or otherwise indulge themselves, and Tanehnaus definitely does plenty of this. But by and large, Buckley is fine, though one definitely gets the impression the author doesn’t like his subject very much.

Tanenhaus is strongest on Buckley as a young man, Buckley’s and National Review’s finances (about which, more below), the 1968 convention debates with Gore Vidal (including casually dropping the nugget that Buckley would soon, relative to the Vidal imbroglio, make $11,500 per episode of Firing Line), God and Man at Yale, McCarthy and His Enemies, and Watergate. The passages on race – his father’s views, and later his own – are appropriately cringe inducing, and Tanenhaus waits until chapter 43 to tell you Buckley’s views on race had “moderated” by the mid-1970s. That seems like an important caveat that is made almost entirely in passing; if you blink, you’ll miss it.

Which gets us to what “doesn’t like his subject very much” means: Tanenhaus dedicates great, long stretches to Robert Welch and the formation of the John Birch Society, and Buckley’s early endorsements of both (Welch had been an early financial contributor to National Review), but barely thinks to mention, as though it were an afterthought, that Buckley ostensibly excommunicated the JBS from the American Right, which was a big deal. It’s a curious slight; the biographical equivalent of writing a masterly first two-thirds of a novel, then ending it all with, “And suddenly, everything worked out.” Well, did it? How?

There is an interminable chapter on Edgar Smith, who’d killed a teenage girl named Victoria Zielinski in 1957 and – through equal parts Buckley’s inattentiveness to Smith’s case file and Smith’s dynamic writings in his own defense – fooled Buckley (among others) into believing he was innocent. Buckley wrote about Smith in Esquire and established a legal defense fund that finally, in 1971, allowed Smith to secure the lawyers that engineered his release. A condition of that release was that Smith had to admit to killing the girl, which he did, only to say afterward he did so just to earn his freedom. He didn’t really kill the girl, he said.

In 1974, Smith defaulted on a loan Buckley co-signed for, and finally, in 1976, he abducted and stabbed a woman in San Diego. He called Buckley, who tipped off the FBI as to Smith’s whereabouts, and he was arrested. At trial, Smith matter-of-factly confessed to killing Zielinski and explained how he did it. In subsequent writings, Buckley expressed regret he’d been duped, but said nothing of his efforts to get Smith released.

It’s really something, and if you’re going to write a biography of William F. Buckley, Jr. you must include it. But the resolution barely makes a dent compared to the set up. The “oh, by the way” of it all makes you wonder: is it more important to Tanenhaus for him to tell you the story, or to demonstrate how wrong Buckley was? Is the juice worth the squeeze?

Speaking of economy, the most baffling (and maybe the best) chapter of the book is “Seductions,” which more completely lays out Buckley’s various money problems. It reminded me of “No More Champagne,” David Lough’s terrific (and maddening) book about Winston Churchill’s relationship with money. Buckley was like Churchill in that he apparently had absolutely no interest in making a solid financial decision, or learning how to make them. Buckley fans know the money he made from Firing Line, for example, was funneled back into National Review, but here you learn about Buckley’s scheme to pay for his luxury boat, his majority ownership in a media company that took out expensive and haphazard loans, his problems with the SEC, and on like this. Your eyes get wide as the chapter unfolds; again, it’s really something.

If you're wondering: Nothing on Skull and Bones, nothing on Buckley's appearance on Laugh-In, little on his work with the CIA (though to be fair, other than the fact he worked with Howard Hunt, there is apparently not much to know); little that gives you the impression Buckley was anything other than insufferable which, again, gives the distinct impression Tanenhaus didn't like him very much.

[Robert Sparrenberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew absolutely zero about Bill Buckley other than he started the National Review magazine. After reading 860 pages, I’m not sure that I know him any better. I didn’t feel like the author got inside his head to provide the deep insight I was looking for. I wish there had been more samples or brief excerpts of his writing at the beginning of a chapter and then expanded on after that. The things I did learn were the following:

1. Bill thought it would be funny to publish fake pentagon papers in his magazine.
2. He and Howard Hunt were good friends and Bill stuck up for his friend after Hunt had told him in confidence how bad the watergate situation was.
3. Bill had friends across the political spectrum. He may have gone after them in print and on tv but they enjoyed his presence in a social setting(except for Gore Vidal).

As I was reading this, I was trying to decide what Bill would say about the Donald. I’m not sure.

Worth a look if you are into heavy political books and policy.

[Chris Borden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this book with much anticipation, having thoroughly enjoyed Tanenhaus's "Whitaker Chambers." Sadly, I have finished this book with some disappointment.

Part of the disappointment is my fault. Tanenhaus reveals Buckley's many faults and some I am saddened to learn.

My main disappointment, though, is with his misappropriate "spacing." In an 800+ book, Tanenhaus devotes most of his attention events prior to the 1980 election of Ronal Reagan. I found the chapters devoted to Reagan and Bush frustratingly thin. There was no mention of Buckley's response to the fall of the USSR, the Berlin Wall, or Bill Clinton's defeat of his good friend, George H.W. Bush. Did Tanenhaus run out strength to finish or was he afraid to vindicate Buckely?

Furthermore, in the closing pages Tanenhaus again debates Buckley's sexuality, a specious comment on the man's closing years of life. Having examined the issue earlier--Buckley's love of music, his odd mannerisms, his preference for male companionship--and having dismissed it, why on earth did Tanenhaus feel the urge to bring this up again near his death when he had already said in the same work it wasn't true?

I don't begrudge Tanenhaus's treatment of Buckley early life and politics, I just wished he had applied the same energies to the middle and end of his life.

[Abhi V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like with Kotkin, such long books are impossible to review, or really even comment on. I will say that its end was unexpectedly very sad and moving, and have put me in a philosophical mood....

I half-read it (thank you to the Yale Conservative Party for giving me a copy) and half-listened, and I have made many, many notes, and maybe (although of course I always say this), I will collect them all, or synthesize my thoughts about them. But much of it also feels so personal and poignant... how could I write anything, without blocking people I know on here?

[Luke LeBar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very very long, but incredibly well written biography. A testament to the genius and rigor of its author Sam Tannenhaus, who spent 20 years writing this tome. He ended it well, reminding the reader of Buckley’s virtues of imagination, generosity, and personal kindness. But Buckley’s legacy speaks for itself. He was midwife to so many ideas that have been so damaging for so many people in this country. He never could move beyond many of his resentments towards a higher plane of thought or action, until the very end of his life. In this way, he is a warning to us all.

[Mike Troilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam Tanenhaus provides an entertaining, informative portrait of the most important American conservative of the 20th century. Whatever your politics, you are sure to enjoy this book if you enjoy history. This account of Buckley’s life is laden not only with the complexities of the man but also the development of the Left and the Right. The discussion of the alienation conservatives felt in the 1950s is eerily prescient.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a million things to say about this William F. Buckley biography, it would take many paragraphs to write. I’ll keep it short: Sam Tanenhaus dispels many myths about Buckley, including his reputation as a moderator within the movement, and parts of his life that remained obscured like his sexuality. However, Buckley was two things: a conduit of dark conservative impulses in the postwar era and a master of theater. It’s hard not to see his impact on the contemporary Republican Party as it aligns itself with racist, paleo-conservative positions and finds ways to entertain and distract the public into normalizing its extremism.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to learn about the rise of the modern conservative political movement in the U.S. and also about a half a century’s worth of U.S. history, you must read this book. So honored I get to work with Sam. He’s such a meticulous researcher and more importantly a kind soul.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

review tk

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good! Wish I could’ve joined Bill and Jim when they drank martinis, took some acid, and went to the porno theater…bad dude though Ahem.

[Sam Lair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding. Among American historical biographers, Tanenhaus and Caro, in T.S. Eliot's phrase, divide the world. There is no third.

[Andrés Pertierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like most biographers, you can tell that the author has some affection for his subject. And, seeing as Max Boot endorsed the book, I went in unsure if I was starting a serious work or a hagiography. I’m pleased to report it is very much a case of the former.

This biography does a great job of illustrating, at once, why Buckley was so beloved and effective, on the one hand, and also fails to hold its tongue on his numerous flaws and ethical failings. This makes it widely useful because the criticisms will doubtless prove eye opening for many conservatives while the illustration of his strengths and human side will help to show those negatively disposed towards him (including me) a critical dimension of his person that would have been lost if the author had just excoriated him throughout.

[Adam‘’s book reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review: Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America by Sam Tanenhaus

There are two key takeaways from this book: first, William F. Buckley Jr. was a product of extreme privilege, and second, this biography is long, detailed, and often slow-moving.

Tanenhaus presents Buckley as a sharp-witted intellectual, but what stands out most is how much of his success was bankrolled by his father. From childhood through adulthood, Buckley had every advantage—elite education, financial security, and a built-in platform to spread his views. Without his family’s wealth, it’s hard to imagine him achieving the same level of influence. Yet, despite this silver-spoon upbringing, Buckley had no problem passing judgment on others, often with an elitist and exclusionary mindset.

The book itself is well-researched but drags in several places. Tanenhaus dedicates a lot of time to Buckley’s early years, and while that context is important, the pacing suffers. The narrative picks up when Buckley enters public life, but even then, the exhaustive level of detail might test a reader’s patience.

For those who love in-depth political biographies like John Adams or The Power Broker, this book will likely be rewarding. But if you’re looking for a sharper, more engaging read, you might find Buckley to be more of a slog than a revelation.

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing a free copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was great: a model of how to look at a highly influential person’s life (a long life at that) with great richness but not too much detail. I’ve read some real door stopping biographies recently, and they went way too much into family, financial, and health issues. This felt more curated and narrative, and it gave me a vastly improved understanding of WFB’s life and impact.

A few things that jumped out to me: WFB was a patrician Catholic conservative whose upbringing was deeply shaped by nostalgia for pre-revolutionary Mexico as well as by spending a great deal of time in the Jim Crow South. He adored traditional Mexico because it seemed like the perfect conservative society: everyone had and knew their place, and a small crust of the Catholic elite ruled over everything.

He saw the Jim Crow South more as the white people holding power magnanimously until black people were up to the level of civilization required for participation in modern society. This was shaped by his relationship with the black community in Camden, SC, where his father employed many people from the community and often gave back to that community in a hierarchical but not necessarily hostile relationship. Unfortunately, this led WFB to romanticize the South and fail to appreciate the innate violence of Jim Crow, so he opposed Civil Rights legislation and the movement itself for a long, long time, as did National Review in general.

The main point of this book is that WFB was a movement-builder, not really a thinker. He was smart and quick on his feet, but he was best in debate rather than research, real journalism, or theory. He never finished his magnum opus, the Revolt Against the Masses, and relied on other intellectuals like James Burnham and Wilmoore Kendall to form his worldview outright. There is a huge debate about whether or not he effectively gate-kept the conservative movement; I think he did to an extent, but he did so in a tactical way so as to not alienate the angry people who loved incendiary or psychotic characters like Robert Welch or George Wallace. WFB was also the public face of conservatism in a way that took some its edge off, especially on his popular and entertaining talk show Firing Line.

(open-minded ideologue) Another thing that makes WFB so compelling is that he did have the capacity for change. He changed on race, eventually taking seriously the testimonies of black people about the reality of life in America and admitting he was wrong about Jim Crow. He softened a bit in his views over time, becoming more of an establishment figure, and giving up the harsh, even counter-revolutionary anti-statism of the early National Review era.

One way that WFB seems so different from modern conservatives, who are obsessed with tough-guy masculinity and populism, is his aesthetic and unapologetically elitist sensibility. He was funny and charming, and he would talk with anyone, even revolutionaries like Eldridge Cleaver. He sailed, cried at the symphony, used the biggest vocabulary words you can conceive of, and built NR into both a political and a cultural force (even if it was never particularly lucrative).

If you don’t have a pre-existing interest in Buckley, this might not be the book for you. But if you are interested in him and/or the conservative movement in the late 20th century, as well as some of its breaks and continuities with conservatism today, this is a really good read and a model of how to write the long biography.

[Writemoves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam Tanenhaus’s nearly 900‑page biography is a major investment of time, and it helps to arrive already curious about—or at least aware of—William F. Buckley Jr. and the post‑war conservative movement he helped shape. For readers who meet that threshold, the book proves surprisingly readable; for those who don’t, the dense historical detail may feel arduous.

Scope and Balance
Tanenhaus is both exhaustive and even‑handed. He neither canonizes nor demonizes his subject, instead cataloguing Buckley’s triumphs alongside his missteps. Critics may bristle at the close attention paid to family “warts,” especially the overbearing father, but the research is meticulous and the portrait persuasive.

Buckley’s Major Misjudgments
Foreign‑policy zigzags – Buckley opposed U.S. entry into World War II before Pearl Harbor yet staunchly backed the Vietnam War.
McCarthyism and Watergate – He defended Senator Joe McCarthy and later downplayed Watergate, even championing conspirator Howard Hunt.
Civil‑rights resistance – Buckley was late to endorse full political rights for Black Americans, claiming many were unprepared for the franchise.
The Edgar Smith debacle – Perhaps his worst lapse: lobbying for the release of convicted murderer Edgar Smith, who soon attacked another woman. Charm and flattery clouded Buckley’s judgement, and basic due diligence was absent.

Admirable Qualities
Despite his blind spots, Buckley inspired loyalty. Friends—ideological allies and foes alike—describe his private warmth, generosity, and wit. His charitable giving was substantial and discreet, and he remained courteous to adversaries off camera.

Education and Talents
An indifferent early student who failed several prep‑school entrance exams, Buckley benefited from a cosmopolitan upbringing in Europe, becoming multilingual. At Yale he honed the dazzling rhetorical style that later defined Firing Line. A true polymath, he wrote gracefully, played concert‑level piano, skippered ocean races, debated ferociously, and chronicled his frenetic routines in the memoir Overdrive.

Personal Speculations
Tanenhaus briefly entertains Gore Vidal’s insinuations about Buckley’s sexuality but unearths no substantial evidence. The Buckley‑Vidal televised clashes, however, remain one of the book’s liveliest threads.

Blind Spots in Business
For all his verbal precision, Buckley was financially inept. National Review survived only through repeated infusions from his father and sympathetic backers; balance sheets mystified him, and bankruptcy loomed more than once.

How the Book Changed My View
I once saw Buckley as an unalloyed Renaissance man. Tanenhaus complicates that picture, revealing antisemitic streaks, chronic resistance to civil rights, and a habit—memorably skewered by Yale philosopher Paul Weiss—of sounding authoritative on books he hadn’t read. In the end, Buckley emerges as brilliant but fallible, magnetic yet blinkered—a man whose revolution reshaped American conservatism while mirroring its contradictions.

Verdict
For readers already engaged with post‑war political history, Tanenhaus offers a definitive, engrossing study. Newcomers to Buckley may wish to sample his columns or television debates first; only then will they fully appreciate the nuance—and magnitude—of this sprawling biography.

[Bookreporter.com Biography & Memoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

William F. Buckley, Jr. was born on November 24, 1925 to William F. Buckley and Aloise Steiner. He was one of 10 children, and his birth positioned him in the middle of the Buckley brood.

William Sr. was an oil developer with a keen perception for which way the political winds blew, whether north or south of the Mexican border. He typified the boom-and-bust nature of the oilman, yet the Buckley family often experienced the trappings of wealth in their youth. They lived in Sharon, Connecticut, where their estate, Great Elm, was located. They also maintained a large residence in Camden, South Carolina, known as Kamschatka.

Buckley experienced life abroad at an early age as the family moved to Europe before the stock market crash in 1929. The relocation across the Atlantic was meant to broaden the minds of the children, particularly the younger ones. Buckley’s early education began in England, but his formative schooling occurred back in the United States when he attended boarding school in Millbrook, New York. Money and privilege may have granted others access to the renowned institution, but he would need to distinguish himself at the school in order to graduate and set his path forward to college.

After a stint in the Army during World War II, Buckley attended Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and was admitted to their secret society Skull and Bones. His knack for leadership shined through as he helmed the college paper, and he would prove intractable when standing up for others. His first foray into the battle against communism came with the advent of the Korean War. He wished to combat it in a non-martial manner, which led to a brief but impactful tenure with the CIA, where he formed a long friendship with the soon-to-be infamous E. Howard Hunt.

As Buckley matured, he wanted to voice his opinions to the public. His first venture, GOD AND MAN AT YALE, had its share of fans and harsh critics. But criticism didn’t deter him, and his conservatism only grew as the 1950s progressed. The National Review was fueled by a new voice in political activism that belonged to Buckley and primarily was kept afloat by his family’s largesse. As the magazine's readership steadily increased, he became a regular TV personality with his show “Firing Line.” His role as éminence grise was undeniable for over 50 years.

BUCKLEY is an overarching biography that encompasses the peaks and valleys of the life of an influential and polarizing man. Sam Tanenhaus, the former editor of The New York Times Book Review and a contributing writer for the Washington Post, has penned an epic chronicle befitting his subject. Buckley is seen as an erudite individual, a staunch conservative in ideology yet capable of evolution in his thoughts. While he could be combative with an opponent in an intense debate in public, his demeanor in private was often the exact opposite. His dual nature is both perplexing and intriguing.

In Tanenhaus’ terrific and enlightening work, readers are treated to almost every aspect of Buckley’s life --- his loves, successes, trials and tribulations --- and will find themselves enriched as they devour the last page.

Reviewed by Philip Zozzaro

[Spencer Reads Everything · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always appreciated a lengthy biography, especially the kind that takes its time situating a figure within the wider intellectual, political, and cultural world that shaped them. Sam Tanenhaus excels at that kind of work. His biography of William F. Buckley Jr. is enormous in scope, meticulous in research, and confident in its ability to weave archival materials, personal correspondence, and political history into a single coherent narrative. It is exactly the kind of biography that rewards patience and curiosity.

Tanenhaus spent decades working on this book, and that long engagement shows. He has a clear command of the mid twentieth century conservative movement, and he uses Buckley's life as a lens through which to explore how that movement was built. The early chapters on Buckley's upbringing are especially strong. Tanenhaus presents a young man formed by Catholic devotion, multilingual education, and the influence of a politically passionate father. These foundations matter, and the biography takes them seriously.

The middle sections explore Buckley as a public intellectual, editor, and eventually the figurehead of a growing conservative coalition. The founding of National Review and Buckley's role in shaping everything from tone to institutional culture make up some of the most compelling chapters. Tanenhaus is careful to distinguish between Buckley's ideological commitments and his talent for coalition building. He also does not shy away from the more troubling aspects of Buckley's political positions, particularly during the civil rights era. Those sections are handled with honesty, nuance, and clarity.

The chapters on Firing Line capture Buckley as a media figure, and they help explain why he became one of the most recognizable conservative voices in America. Tanenhaus highlights Buckley's blend of performance and argument, showing how his distinctive style both reflected and shaped the political conversations of his time.

All of that said, I did feel the length of this book. Buckley is a fascinating and important figure, but he is also an exhausting one to spend this much time with. I learned a great deal and appreciated Tanenhaus’s scholarship, but I was also ready to be done by the final chapters. This is not a flaw in the writing so much as the nature of the subject. Buckley looms large, and Tanenhaus allows him to fill every corner of this tome.

Still, I am glad I read it. Buckley remains one of the most important non politician politicians of the twentieth century, and this biography gives him the kind of sweeping, carefully argued treatment his influence warrants. Readers interested in political history, media studies, conservatism, or the construction of intellectual movements will find this well worth the time. But be prepared. This is a serious commitment of both attention and stamina.

A demanding but rewarding biography. I learned a lot, even if I was relieved to close the cover.

For more of my thoughts, check out my video:
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[Tom Stamper · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a biography of personal detachment which is odd considering that Buckley chose the author as his official biographer. When Buckley appears in the memoirs of others or when writers explain his significance in 20th century conservatism, you get a real sense of what it was like to be in his presence. Thirty years ago the reader may have already known or had an idea of this, but Buckley has been gone for 17 years and no one under 30 or maybe even 40 has any idea of his persona. William Manchester in his brilliant Winston Churchill biography begins with a vignette of what Churchill's day was like and then went on to the drier history of events. It was the best part of the Manchester series and this book could have used something like it because a thousand pages later I really have no idea why Buckley became important, what set him apart. The author doesn't show you the man himself outside of the history.

There are several moments in the life of Buckley I have not seen covered elsewhere. His correspondence with the convicted murderer on death row has always been a mystery to me and it becomes a moment of many where Buckley comes off as idiosyncratic. I think this is largely due to the political leanings of Tanenhaus who is more interested in Civil Rights or the protest against the Vietnam war than why Buckley pulled blue collar voters away from Democrat Abe Beam in the 1965 New York mayoral race. He spends a good amount of ink on John Leonard and Garry Wills, two Buckley acolytes that defected to the Left while you don't get a sense of the rivalry between Russell Kirk and Frank Meyer for instance or the central importance of Jim Burnham's ability to influence the younger impetuous Buckley into taking a moderate position on certain things.

Mainly, Tanenhaus doesn't give any sense of what it was like to be in the presence of William F. Buckley. The personal charm, the friendships without political borders, his personality at sea or skiing. The reader comes away not really understanding why he was persuasive and how he became important. It's too much a pedestrian station-to-station retelling of his life. Goldwater loses. Let's run for mayor. Reagan ascends, Vietnam divides, Nixon regains, Watergate. And almost each time Buckley is judged in the moment of these history pinpoints he is far too often a subject of criticism by the author. Is this because Tanenhaus liked Buckley and made himself find criticisms to seem more objective or did Tanenhaus begin to dislike Buckley as he researched the nuts and bolts of his life? The lack of balance between criticism and his better qualities is probably the major reason why the subject is enigmatic rather than complex to the reader. 1,000 pages and you won't understand Buckley any better than when you began although you will better understand the events. Rick Brookhiser and Jeff Hart wrote books where they were critical of Buckley too but they also explained what made Buckley captivating. This is where the author failed to present a fuller portrait of his subject.