Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America
Sam Tanenhaus
Jun 2025 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner
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31 hr 39 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
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 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 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, unparalleled investigation into the vast and often hidden universe of Bill Buckley and the modern conservative revolution.
Majestic in its sweep, rich in ideas and argument, and packed with news and revelations, Buckley vividly captures its subject in all his facets and phases—founding editor of National Review, the 20th century’s most influential political journal; syndicated columnist and TV debater; ally of Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater; mentor to Ronald Reagan; wisecracking candidate for mayor of New York; and bestselling novelist and memoirist. There is the private, and darker life of Bill Buckley, too, from secret CIA missions to complicated friendships with Richard Nixon and Watergate felon Howard Hunt, and later, Buckley’s lonely struggle to hold together a movement coming apart over the AIDS epidemic, the culture wars, and the invasion of Iraq.
The result is a gripping story of the modern conservative movement as it rose from a formless coalition to a powerful cultural force, its campaigns and crusades defined and advanced on the many platforms Buckley created, bringing to life the era’s most important conservative intellectuals and writers.
At a crucial moment in American history, Buckley offers a powerfully relevant story about the birth of modern politics and those who shaped it.
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 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 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, unparalleled investigation into the vast and often hidden universe of Bill Buckley and the modern conservative revolution.
Majestic in its sweep, rich in ideas and argument, and packed with news and revelations, Buckley vividly captures its subject in all his facets and phases—founding editor of National Review, the 20th century’s most influential political journal; syndicated columnist and TV debater; ally of Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater; mentor to Ronald Reagan; wisecracking candidate for mayor of New York; and bestselling novelist and memoirist. There is the private, and darker life of Bill Buckley, too, from secret CIA missions to complicated friendships with Richard Nixon and Watergate felon Howard Hunt, and later, Buckley’s lonely struggle to hold together a movement coming apart over the AIDS epidemic, the culture wars, and the invasion of Iraq.
The result is a gripping story of the modern conservative movement as it rose from a formless coalition to a powerful cultural force, its campaigns and crusades defined and advanced on the many platforms Buckley created, bringing to life the era’s most important conservative intellectuals and writers.
At a crucial moment in American history, Buckley offers a powerfully relevant story about the birth of modern politics and those who shaped it.
About the author
Sam Tanenhaus, the former editor of The New York Times Book Review, is the author of the national bestseller 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. His feature articles and essays have appeared in the Atlantic, New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and many other publications in the U.S. and abroad. He is currently a contributing writer for the Washington Post.
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