Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America

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 Buckley: 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.