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Full Review of William F. Buckley by Jeremy Lott

By Hunter Baker on 9.6.10 @ 1:35PM

I've now had the chance to finish Lott's book about William F. Buckley. He wrote the book as part of the Christian Encounters series for Thomas Nelson. The book is a quick read and is absolutely packed with interesting information about WFB. I say that as a person who has been reading Buckley and reading about him for many years. Lott's book (titled William F. Buckley) gets past the half dozen or so anecdotes we've all heard and shares lots of great stuff about Buckley as a thinker and controversialist.

A few interesting features:

Lott compares Buckley's charges made in God and Man at Yale with the recent experiences of a Yale student (Deepthink!). Perhaps unsurprisingly, but humorously, the recent student utterly vindicates young Buckley's concerns about his alma mater.
We get a great moment in which Buckley protested Kruschev's visit to America by renting a hall and giving a rousing speech. He told the crowd not to despair because of the moral resources Americans had that the Soviets didn't and added that the Soviet leader, "is not aware that the gates of hell shall not prevail against us . . . In the end we will bury him."
We learn that WFB could well have become the senator for New York instead of his brother, Jim, who served one term. After Robert Kennedy was shot, Buckley decided to stand down in favor of Jim. What might that chamber have been like with the most eloquent and cutting Buckley on the floor????

The book is highly satisfying and extremely well done. I am impressed that an evangelical publishing company has offered the best biography since WFB's death. We would expect it from ISI or Regnery. Of course, we all await the authorized volume someday to come from Sam Tanenhaus who was so successful in his treatment of Whittaker Chambers' life.

View all comments (5) | Leave a comment

Tim*| 9.6.10 @ 2:43PM

Consider WFB And The Tea Party Rebels :

"• Buckley would delight in The Tea Party's willingness to challenge the establishment.
• Buckley would like The Tea Party's determination to place principle above party, any party.
• Buckley would applaud The Tea Party's message of ' We want government off our backs and out of our pockets.' "

“There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.”

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Jacopone| 9.6.10 @ 5:53PM

One of my greatest personal treasures is Buckley’s “Up From Liberalism”. At one time, it, together with Newman’s “The Idea of a University”, was required reading at my university. Alas, how things have changed. Of course, in those days one became an adult much earlier than today. I think Buckley would agree with me that there should be a qualification to vote requiring a minimum capacity to read and write English, to have some knowledge of our nation’s history and the Constitution. And above all, no one believing that the USA is comprised of 57 states should be allowed to vote.

Hunter Baker| 9.6.10 @ 6:09PM

Jacopone, what university was that??? Sounds terrific.

edward del colle| 9.7.10 @ 1:49PM

here, here, with a requirement for some discernment of your country's language and blueprint of self-government! as for the current imposter in chief who thinks he been to all 57 states,a wily news person should ask him without a teleprompter if he know s what"don't immanentize the eschaton" means or refers to? many of his groupies believe it's doable here and now.

S.L. Toddard| 9.7.10 @ 1:34PM

"We have got to accept Big Government for the duration–for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged... except through the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores."

- William F. Buckley