The Weekly Standard: A Reader: 1995-2005 - Softcover

Kristol, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060882859 ISBN 13: 9780060882853

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis

A collection of the most provocative and insightful writing from the influential conservative magazine the Weekly Standard.

Smart, tough, and opinionated, The Weekly Standard has been America's most influential conservative journal since its inception in 1995. In this collection, editor William Kristol gathers the most provocative and insightful pieces from the magazine's ten–year history, assembling a who's–who not just of conservative commentary, but of contemporary journalism. With pieces from the likes of David Brooks, P.J. O'Rourke, Christopher Hitchens, and Tucker Carlson, the collection ranges from penetrating coverage of foreign and domestic policy to erudite cultural commentary to acerbic and hilarious parodies. Readers will be treated to a pundit's history of the decade, as told by the magazine that has become mandatory reading inside the Beltway––a series of engaging, thought–provoking essays that will appeal not just to the Weekly Standard's large and loyal readership but to anyone who cares about American politics and culture.

About this title

About the Author:

William Kristol is the editor of The Weekly Standard. He is a regular commentator on the Fox News Channel and a former professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He lives in suburban Washington, D.C.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Magazine journalism is a perishable medium," writes Weekly Standard editor William Kristol in this anniversary anthology of the right-leaning magazine's writings, and "political and social commentary is the most perishable magazine journalism of all." Though the events framed within this retrospective-from the death of Dorothy Lamour to the war in Iraq-were hot for a moment (or, in some cases, much longer), they remain pertinent pieces of history, even after the public consciousness moves on to the next big thing. During its first decade in print, the magazine has featured the work of conservative luminaries and pundits such as PJ O'Rourke, who, with his acerbic pen, skewered then-first lady Hillary Clinton's book It Takes a Village, which, he noted, offered advice on how to entertain children with a sock puppet. Yet among John Podhoretz's lamenting the death of Broadway and Tucker Carlson's gleeful recollections of forged letters past, there are pieces that will be seen as eerily prophetic. In his April 2003 piece, "Liberating Iraq," Stephen Hayes writes of Saddam Hussein's overthrow at a time when optimism over that country's fate was still palpable. Yet, his observations telegraph problems to come. "Many Iraqis here...seemed to be fighting their own emotions, lurching unpredictably from gratitude to desperation to apprehension." Even more striking is Reuel Marc Gerecht's prescient July 2001 piece on the lack of American urgency in the face of an Al Qaeda threat. Ideology and politics aside, it remains astonishing to review what the last ten years has wrought, and Kristol's ambitious venture has captured them with humor, sobriety and intelligence.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0060882859
• ISBN 13: 9780060882853
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 560