For most of the last century, William F. Buckley Jr. was the leading figure in the conservative movement in America. The magazine he founded in 1955, National Review, brought together writers representing every strand of conservative thought, and refined those ideas over the decades that followed. Buckley’s own writings were a significant part of this development. He was not a theoretician but a popularizer, someone who could bring conservative ideas to a vast audience through dazzling writing and lively wit. Culled from millions of published words spanning nearly sixty years, Athwart History: Half a Century of Polemics, Animadversions, and Illuminations offers Buckley’s commentary on the American and international scenes, in areas ranging from Kremlinology to rock music. The subjects are widely varied, but there are common threads linking them all: a love for the Western tradition and its American manifestation; the belief that human beings thrive best in a free society; the conviction that such a society is worth defending at all costs; and an appreciation for the quirky individuality that free people inevitably develop.
Here is a unique collection of fifty years of essays chosen to form an unconventional autobiography and capstone to his remarkable career as the conservative writer par excellence. Included are essays that capture Buckley's joyful boyhood and family life; his years as a conservative firebrand at Yale; the life of a young army officer; his love of wine and sailing; memories of his favourite friends; the great influences of music and religion; a life in politics; and exploring the beauty, diversity, and exactitude of the English language.
John V. Lindsay was elected mayor of New York City in 1965. But that year’s mayoral campaign will forever be known as the Buckley campaign. “As a candidate,” Joseph Alsop conceded, “Buckley was cleverer and livelier than either of his rivals.” And Murray Kempton concluded that “The process which coarsens every other man who enters it has only refined Mr. Buckley.” The Unmaking of a Mayor is a time capsule of the political atmosphere of America in the spring of 1965, diagnosing the multitude of ills that plagued New York and other major cities: crime, narcotics, transportation, racial bias, mismanagement, taxes, and the problems of housing, police, and education. Buckley’s nimble dissection of these issues constitutes an excellent primer of conservative thought. A good pathologist, Buckley shows that the diseases afflicting New York City in 1965 were by no means of a unique strain, and compared them with issues that beset the country at large. Buckley offers a prescient vision of the Republican Party and America’s two-party system that will be of particular interest to today’s conservatives. The Unmaking of a Mayor ends with a wistful glance at what might have been in 1965—and what might yet be.
The New York Times Bestseller William F. Buckley, Jr. remembers—as only he could—the towering figures of the twentieth century in a brilliant and emotionally powerful collection, compiled by acclaimed Fox News correspondent James Rosen. In a half century on the national stage, William F. Buckley, Jr. achieved unique stature as a writer, a celebrity, and the undisputed godfather of modern American conservatism. He kept company with the best and brightest, the sultry and powerful. Ronald Reagan pronounced WFB “perhaps the most influential journalist and intellectual in our era,” and his jet-setting life was a who’s who of high society, fame, and fortune. Among all his distinctions, which include founding the conservative magazine National Review and hosting the long-running talk show Firing Line, Buckley was also a master of that most elusive art form: the eulogy. He drew on his unrivaled gifts to mourn, celebrate, or seek mercy for the men and women who touched his life and the nation. Now, for the first time, WFB’s sweeping judgments of the great figures of his time—presidents and prime ministers, celebrities and scoundrels, intellectuals and guitar gods—are collected in one place. A Torch Kept Lit presents more than fifty of Buckley’s best eulogies, drawing on his personal memories and private correspondences and using a novelist’s touch to conjure his subjects as he knew them. We are reintroduced, through Buckley’s eyes, to the likes of Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, Elvis Presley and John Lennon, Truman Capote and Martin Luther King, Jr. Curated by Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen, a Buckley protégé and frequent contributor to National Review, this volumes sheds light on a tumultuous period in American history—from World War II to Watergate, the “death” of God to the Grateful Dead—as told in the inimitable voice of one of our most elegant literary stylists.William F. Buckley, Jr. is back—just when we need him most.
Airborne is how William F. Buckley, Jr. describes his sail across the wide Atlantic with his son and five friends. The trip, for fifteen years a dream, for fifteen months a planned operation, was always a risk: one doesn’t set out haphazardly in a small sailboat across 4,400 miles of ocean, and Buckley’s account of perils of the sea as experienced by himself since he acquired his first sailboat at age thirteen is at once graphic, instructive, and terrifying. But, we learn quickly, the concern is mostly for the prospect of thirty days and thirty nights away from the cosmopolitan jungle to which he and his friends are accustomed; their lair, so to speak. But it happened: notwithstanding vicissitudes amusing, annoying, and even dangerous, suddenly the schooner, and the entire trip, were airborne, and the experience resulted in a fusion of hopes, fears, ambitions, and pleasures that lifts the book from the category of mere chronicles of the sea, into a chronicle of our time, a passage of the spirit.
National Review has always published letters from readers. In 1965 the magazine decided that certain letters merited different treatment, and William F. Buckley, the editor, began a column called ''Notes & Asides'' in which he personally replied to the most notable and outrageous correspondence. Culled from four decades of the column, Cancel Your Own God dam Subscription includes exchanges with such well-known figures as Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, John Kenneth Galbraith, A.M. Rosenthal, Auberon Waugh, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and many others. There are also hilarious exchanges with ordinary readers, as well as letters from Buckley to various organizations and government agencies. Combative, brilliant, and uproariously funny, Cancel Your Own God dam Subscription represents Buckley at his mischievous best.
The perfect gift for sophisticated word lovers, this handy pocket guide comesfrom the author famous for his addiction to and marvelous skill with words ofall kinds. Illustrations.
In this New York Times bestseller, a CIA agent is trapped in Budapest between KGB spies and Hungarian freedom fighters while trying to stop Sputnik. The students of Budapest rise up against the Soviets with the assurance that the West will help them fight. Instead, 200 Russian tanks roll across the Hungarian border, sweeping the resistance aside. It’s a heartbreaking setback for democracy in Eastern Europe—and a pain in the neck for Blackford Oakes. Trapped in Budapest when the fighting breaks out, this warm-hearted cold warrior must think quickly to stay ahead of the troops. But as the revolution collapses around him, he finds the Red Army is the least of his worries. American intelligence has received word that the Soviets are planning to launch a satellite into space—a move that could shift the entire Cold War in their favor. It’s up to Oakes to stop them, and help the United States make its first steps toward the stars. Who’s on First is the 3rd book in the Blackford Oakes Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Bestselling author William F. Buckley, Jr., offers a terrific new novel—in the gloriously gripping tradition of Howard Fast, Irwin Shaw, and Jeffery Archer—of men and women caught between the force of history and the power of their own desires. Italy, 1944. Pfc. Danny O'Hara and Pfc. Henry Chafee are part of a regiment ordered to attack a German unit north of Rome. But at the critical moment, one young man's courage fails him. Court-martial and shame are averted only by the other's apparently valiant effort to cover for him. A complex lifelong bond is thus forged between two men who seem an unlikely match. Henry is the son of a widowed librarian, quiet, studious, devoted to his sister, Caroline. Danny is gregarious, charming, aglow with the glamour of wealth and privilege. He is also the President's grandson. Brothers No More is the sweeping story of the lives and times of these two men—one searching to redeem his courage and resolve, the other undone by his own ambition and greed—both spellbound by the devout and beautiful Caroline. From the European theater of World War II to the deadly jungles of Vietnam, from the verdant lawns of Yale to the glittering casinos of the French Riviera, from the intimate warmth of a suburban home to the most rarefied corridors of corporate power, Brothers No More spans continents and decades to touch on some of the most significant events in modern history. With the masterful storytelling power, sophisticated wit, and deft blend of fact and fiction that have won William F. Buckley, Jr., legions of devoted readers around the world, Brothers No More is an unforgettable novel of honor, betrayal, and faith.
In Happy Days Were Here Again, William F. Buckley Jr. offers a collection of his finest essays from the latter part of his long career. Sometimes celebrating, sometimes assailing, Buckley takes on opponents ranging from Mikhail Gorbachev to Carl Sagan to Leonard Bernstein; reflects on the academic scene, the Gulf War, and the idea of sin; and offers appreciations of friends, both right and left. For everyone who appreciates the wit and style of America's pre-eminent conservative, this is a must-have collection.
In the New York Times–bestselling spy series, Agent Oakes is in Cuba for secret negotiations with Che Guevara—on a mission that soon turns deadly. From his 1st day in office, President Kennedy has been bedeviled by Cuba. The CIA forced the Bay of Pigs invasion down his throat, resulting in lost lives, international embarrassment, and a new low in America’s relationship with the Caribbean. More than anything, Kennedy wants Cuba contained. Brute force didn’t work; it’s time to try a subtler approach—and there is no spy more tactful than Blackford Oakes. The CIA calls it Operation Alligator: a top secret back-channel negotiation to put Cuba and the United States on better footing. Oakes goes south to meet with Castro’s right-hand man, the notorious Che Guevara, in hopes of finding common ground between their countries. Instead, he discovers a sinister Communist plot that could destabilize the hemisphere, and lead the US president to his doom. See You Later, Alligator is the 6th book in the Blackford Oakes Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
In 1980, Buckley gathered together his friends and set out to sail across the Atlantic. This is what he correctly describes as a “celebration” of that thirty-day event. Here are the calms and the storms, the melodrama and the rumination, the wine and the song, the navigation and the introspection that in Buckley’s distinctive blend capture the imagination of sailors and non-sailors, amuse the lighthearted and the dour, and engross the reader who wishes he were aboard, as also the reader who thanks heaven that he is not.
His Roman-Catholic faith has been an enduring part of the life and personality of William Buckley, Jr. Now, for the first time since his ground breaking God and the Man at Yale he has written a book about faith--his own. Nearer, My God, An Autobiography of Faith is William Buckley's superbly written story of his life seen through his abiding love for the Catholic Church, a love instilled in him from childhood. He reminisces about his school days in England, his family, the affect the Lunn/Knox dialogue had on him, and examines many aspects of Catholicism and its theology, doctrine and liturgy and on the way discourses about Lourdes, the vernacular mass, the Church and the State, the Crucifixion, the priesthood, contraception as well as the many people who have assisted him on his life's journey. A remarkable, revealing book about one man and his faith.
On assignment to restore a 13th-century German chapel, Blackford Oakes learns that its owner is far more than a charming aristocrat. The charismatic Wintergrin is rousing his countrymen to reunite Germany. Now, Oakes must either pull the fatal switch on his friend, or find a way to change the rules. From the bestselling author of Tucker's Last Stand.
In Flying High, William F. Buckley Jr. offers his lyrical remembrance of a singular era in American politics, and a tribute to the modern Conservative movement's first presidential standard-bearer, Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was in many ways the perfect candidate: self-reliant, unpretentious, unshakably honest, and dashingly handsome. And although he lost the election, he electrified millions of voters with his integrity and a sense of decency - qualities that made him a natural spokesman for Conservative ideals and an inspiration for decades to come. In an era when Republicans are looking for a leader, Flying High is a reminder of how real political visionaries inspire devotion.
Conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal author Gore Vidal exploded onto the political scene during the presidential conventions of 1968 when they debated 11 times on ABC News as a part of the network s unconventional convention coverage. The debates were fiery and combative and they infamously blew up at each other during their penultimate debate in Chicago. The debates, the subject of the new documentary film Best of Enemies, have not been shown or transcribed in their entirety since the original airings in 1968. The Devault-GravesAgency -- the publisher that made world news in 2014 by publishing Three Early Stories, the first J.D. Salinger book in 50 years -- exclusively brings you the complete, uncensored Buckley-Vidal transcripts in all their highly readable glory. The book also features an eloquent and informative introduction by one of the directors of Best of Enemies, author Robert Gordon. This book will appeal to the legion of fans and readers of both Buckley and Vidal. Students of debate will find no better guide to the art of verbal fencing than Buckley vs. Vidal. Libraries throughout the U.S. will want Buckley vs. Vidal as the official record of the most infamous debates of the last half-century by two of the most important social arbiters of the era. Buckley vs. Vidal will be a textbook of style and substance to any aspiring debater, or those already in the fray.
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