Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater - Softcover

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008) was one of the intellectual leaders of the right for more than fifty years. The founder and editor-in-chief of the National Review, he was also the author of over fifty works of fiction and nonfiction. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H.W. Bush in 1991.

Buckley’s recent death casts a valedictory shadow over his posthumously published tribute to the man who, for an entire generation, gave American conservatism its most recognizable public face. In his own inimitable style—elegant yet edgy—the crown prince of conservative intellectuals recounts the decisive events that forged the paradoxical Barry Goldwater presidential campaign of 1964. Though doomed to an abysmal electoral defeat, that campaign galvanized the conservative cadres who would go on to decades of political triumph. Predictably, Buckley highlights his own role in formulating Goldwater’s right-wing agenda and in promulgating that agenda through the magazine (National Review) he founded. More surprising for many readers will be the story of how Goldwater’s landmark political credo Conscience of a Conservative took shape through one of National Review’s carefully groomed correspondents acting as the author’s ghostwriter. Yet it was Goldwater’s own indomitable personal courage that converted a paper-and-ink philosophy into an unforgettable public presence, inspiring bold new hopes among the conservative Republicans who rallied to his banner. Buckley particularly highlights the unlikely circumstances that allowed a relatively new Republican convert—a B-movie actor named Ronald Reagan—to deliver a riveting speech in the waning hours of Goldwater’s ill-fated presidential run. A compelling reminder that individual personality still matters in the modern world of mass politics. --Bryce Christensen