William f buckley biography book

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Write a customer review. Customers say. Select to learn more. History Writing quality Biography Fairness. Images in this review. Top reviews from the United States. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Verified Purchase. It is important to keep in mind when reading Carl T. Bogus' "Buckley: William F. Buckley's life.

Bogus' theme is, as the title states, Buckley's role in the rise of American conservatism. Consequently, he gives the biographical details needed for that thesis, sufficiently so in my view. I found Bogus' background material concerning the Mexican Revolution and the Vietnam War especially interesting, well written,informative and relevant to his overall theme.

Having recently read Anne C. Heller's excellent biography of Ayn Rand, I thought Bogus' references to Rand were on target and insightful. I especially appreciated Bogus' attention to the general development of American conservatism in his discussion of Russell Kirk and Edmund Burke. Bogus' distinction between liberal and conservative views of personal liberty shows how "movement conservativism" defines the role of government from a decided libertarian position.

I could see Bogus' treatment of Buckley's influence on the American conservative movement being used in a graduate seminar in political philosophy. Buckley his due as a skilled writer and rigorous thinker, even if he Buckley tended not to question his own political and social presuppositions. Given his intention, I think Bogus has written an important, illuminating and extremely clear book on the subject stated in the title.

No doubt I am annoying friends and former colleagues with my insistence that they need to read "Buckley: William F. Proverbs The reason I cite this particular biblical proverb is that the information in this book is nearly all new to me. Going by my limited knowledge of the subject, it seems to me that Mr. Bogus has been very fair, very even-handed, and very thorough in his coverage.

But I reserve the right to change my opinion if and when further information on Mr. Buckley and "National Review" should come to light. Having said all that, I also find this book very readable. Although Mr. Bogus is a self-described political liberal, here he has assembled not only a light biography of Mr. Buckley, by Carl T. Professor Bogus is a dedicated Liberal who has a profound respect for William F.

In generous and accurate detail he describes Mr. Buckley's amazing talent in--well, seemingly everything, whether his music; or sailing a superb sailor ; writing books and newspaper columns; creating National Review the most important and influential opinion journal in the 20th Century ; his lectures and his television program Firing Line ; his humor and charm; his and his wife's personal william f buckley biography book his amazing command of English, and his translator's ability in Spanish or French; his dedication to religious and to historical political and social principles that create a great political order; his powerful commitment to personal friends, and shepherding others who became famous and excellent writers in their own right.

This book has much more. As Professor Bogus greatly admires Mr. Buckley's life and work, he seems, also, to fear both. His fear, briefly stated, is that the Conservative movement that Mr. Buckley galvanized became so strong and dominant that it impaired or destroyed the kingdom of Liberalism in which the Professor resides. My sense of the Professor's effort is rejuvenation and protection of principles and several people to which he clings because he believes that both intellectually and practically they have no life except when associated with the power of the State.

In his book, protection of Liberalism comes, he believes, in parallelism. He protects Liberalism from its utter disasters by comparing those events, or infusing them, with selected thoughts and expressions extracted from prominent Conservative writers in a particular period. An example is Viet Nam. The Professor says America lost the war [it did not] and it was a Liberal failure stemming from Lyndon Johnson although the genesis of American involvement was John F.

McNamara, and their ilk. However this may be, he seems say, Liberalism was sucked into Viet Nam by "Cold War thinking--domino theory, in particular. You need just one guess. Their mutual approach caused that result. With respect to the Professor, the similarity between Kennan and Reagan is limited to three English letters, "e" "a" and "n," that appear in their last names.

And, says the good Professor, President's Reagan's contribution to the demise of the Soviet Union was just as much in spite of modern Conservatism as because of it. It seems to me that it might be easier to prove that gravity naturally causes water to flow uphill. Professor Bogus begins this work saying he concentrates on the years tothe seminal period of the modern Conservative movement.

I conclude this brief review with the thought, "How I wish. They are Professor Bogus on several things, several theories, and extensions of both. However, major parts of this volume are excellent. It presents impressive reviews of the works of Ayn Rand, and important distinctions among Burke, Kirk, Meyer, Buckley and others, whose major contributions are very well summarized.

These and more permit me to recommend it, and I do. The finest writer who came from National Review's and Bill Buckley's stable was Joseph Sobran, easily one of the best in the latter half of the 20th Century. At some point, Bill and Joe were in dispute. Sobran left National Review. No one could replace his writing. Others such as George Will were not even close.

As each man approached the end of life they reconciled. Sobran beautifully wrote about Buckley when he died. Professor Bogus is fair-minded; he is not of the Radical Left. He clings tenaciously to old Liberalism, his kind of Liberalism, even if its loss was self-inflicted as it sank into the fever swamps of the Radical Left--a Left that came to despise Felix Frankfurter, once a william f buckley biography book saint, as much as it loathes William F.

My hope for Professor Bogus is that he continues to write and think well; that he is not ostracized by the Radical Left for writing this book, and if he is that he will receive aid and comfort from the principles that William F. Buckley protected and sustained. Harvey Indianapolis, Indiana. The book is an excellent concise history of movement conservatism.

It is not a a detailed biography of William Buckley or the national review. Rather the author wants to explain Buckley's place within in the conservative movement and explain how Buckley's brand of conservatism was different from other conservatives. The details the author does give of Buckley were to me very surprising. I always thought of him as the quintessential Yankee but it turns out his father was a Texan.

Also, he wasn't born to some dynasty but was the son of a self-made man. I guess Buckley was one of those people who was good at making his own image. See more reviews. Top reviews from other countries. Translate all reviews to English. Without going into an exhaustive review, lets just say I now get it. The intellectual voice of the far right could not be explained more clearly than here.

What a contrast to current situation for the modern conservative movement. Die Freundschaft war positiv, stets kritisch und angenehm sachlich. Seite Jahren wird versucht, W. Buckley als Ikone des Neokonservatismus darzustellen. Book Lists. Buckley Jr. We've compiled a short list of Buckley's classics[ The Top 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read The conservative movement is built upon a foundation -- a bedrock of literature that establishes our ideas about freedom, capitalism,[ Author Interviews.

Weekly Roundup Oct Nov. The Top 10 Conservative Books of The Top 5 Dumbest Liberal Books of Yes No View Results. Conservative Book Club. Conservative Book Club For more than 50 years, the Conservative Book Club has guided book lovers to the best conservative books and authors of our times. Join The Club:. Oh no.

William f buckley biography book

With L. Brent Bozell, Regnery Publishing, Summary: An study of the record and purpose of the controversial Sen. Joseph McCarthy. McDowell, Obolensky, Excerpt: I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me.

I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to… More. Putnam's Sons, Putnam's Sons. Viking Press, Summary: John V.