Sam Tanenhaus — Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America - with Elisabeth Bumiller

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., seized the public stage--and commanded it for the next half century as he led a new generation of conservative 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, uncensored story of his life and times, granting him extensive interviews and exclusive 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, the twentieth century's most influential political journal; syndicated columnist, Emmy-winning TV debater, and bestselling spy novelist; ally of Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater; mentor to Ronald Reagan; game-changing candidate for mayor of New York.Tanenhaus also has uncovered the darker trail of Bill Buckley's secret exploits, including CIA missions in Latin America, dark collusions with Watergate felon Howard Hunt, and Buckley's struggle in his last years to hold together a movement coming apart over the AIDS epidemic, culture wars, and the invasion of Iraq--even as his own media empire was unraveling.At a crucial moment in American history, Buckley offers a gripping and powerfully relevant story about the birth of modern politics and those who shaped it.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780375502347?ic_referral=wJWvGqjdLhNI5WZqVlF6tuIRyFhs4CAAI2tQBEdapw0wM-NoGwHTg8nykp27J9MuTf-9SBf6ConhsuKl3GpxqoAumRtiaP1PsG_VB6bYEyaP0vq-TVrcswL_Xrm52nRWF95MOZASam Tanenhaus, the former editor of The New York Times Book Review, is the author of the national bestsellers Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize) and The Death of Conservatism. His feature articles and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and many other publications in the United States and abroad.Tanenhaus is in conversation with Elisabeth Bumiller. Bumiller is a writer-at-large for The New York Times. She was most recently Washington bureau chief. Previously, she held the position of Washington editor and before that, deputy Washington bureau chief, overseeing White House and domestic policy reporting. She covered the Pentagon, John McCain's 2008 campaign and, from 2001 to 2006, she was a White House correspondent.*recorded 6/8/2025