Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'william f. buckley'

The Right’s Racial Suicide

“To be conservative,” wrote Michael Oakeshott, “is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery.” His definition of conservatism, not as a set of policy aspirations but as a deeper sensibility, explains the conservative respect for tradition and view of history as a source of norms—that’s the positive side. Continue Reading...

Video: Avik Roy on the end of cultural conservatism as we know it

Bill Buckley and Russell Kirk were leaders in building a movement of cultural conservatism to counter the dominant strain of liberalism that governed American politics following World War II. This movement would eventually lead to the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War, as well as the rise of Republican congressional leadership in the 1990s and following. Continue Reading...

Jeremy Lott’s Life of William Buckley

The Thomas Nelson company sent me AmSpec alumnus Jeremy Lott’s William F. Buckley. I will write a full review later, but I have just begun the book and can already tell that Lott is going to bring attention to some underappreciated territory. Continue Reading...

Review: William F. Buckley Jr.

Lee Edwards calls William F. Buckley Jr. “The St. Paul of the conservative movement.” No other 20th century figure made such a vast contribution to the intellectual force of political conservatism. Continue Reading...

Acton Commentary: Reappraising the Right

In this week’s Acton Commentary, I reviewed a new book by George H. Nash on the history of the American conservative movement: Reappraising the Right By Bruce Edward Walker In his 1950 work, “The Liberal Imagination,” Lionel Trilling famously stated that American liberalism was the one true political philosophy, claiming it as the nation’s “sole intellectual tradition.” Continue Reading...