Let Us Talk of Many Things : The Collected Speeches with New Commentary by the Author - Hardcover

Buckley Jr., William F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761525513 ISBN 13: 9780761525516

Publisher: Prima Lifestyles, 2000

Synopsis

William F. Buckley Jr. has long been admired for his remarkable gifts as a writer, debater, and orator. The man who helped ignite the modern conservative movement has for the past fifty years played a significant role in the great social debates that have shaped our country and indeed the world. In the course of his long career, he has given hundreds of speeches to generations of listeners.
"A veritable treasure house. This book has long been awaited by those of us addicted to Buckley's profound, elegant, and witty commentary on the twentieth century."
— Henry A. Kissinge
He has talked of many things—from the Cold War to the passing of dear friends, from moral decay to the joys of sailing the open seas, from the defense of liberty to the comfort of faith. Here, collected for the first time, are Buckley's most memorable speeches, spanning five decades—from the precocious Yale student's Class Day address in 1950 to the elder commentator's accumulated wisdom at century's end. The speeches are one-of-a-kind snapshots that capture the breadth and depth of the ideological wars fought during our country's most turbulent days. They are also richly worded masterpieces of wit, eloquence, and persuasion.
Including new commentary from the author that provides historical context for his speeches, this book is a celebration of an extraordinary public life.

About this title

Review:

It's impossible to think of the modern conservative movement without the deep influence of William F. Buckley Jr., founder of National Review and host of the television series Firing Line. Yet Buckley's evangelizing didn't just occur on the printed page or go out on the airwaves; he gave countless numbers of speeches during the second half of the 20th century. Several dozen of the most significant are collected in Let Us Talk of Many Things, from a 1950 address at Yale University hinting at themes that would be developed fully in God and Man at Yale to a 1999 talk to the Heritage Foundation (on the meaning of heritage, appropriately enough). In between, there are comments on Joseph McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, the failure of the drug war--and on and on and on.

In its way, the book provides a history of American conservative politics, as well as a witty primer on what those politics are all about. One example: "Politics, it has been said, is the preoccupation of the quarter-educated, and I do most solidly endorse that observation, and therefore curse this century above all things for its having given all sentient beings very little alternative than to occupy themselves with politics. It is very well to say we will ignore the Great Society. But will the Great Society repay us our courtesy by ignoring us?" In another speech, delivered shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and at a time when many Americans turned stoutly pessimistic about their own country, Buckley turned matters on their head: "That is the salient datum in America: not that we bred the aberrant assassins of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but that we bred the widely shared and the most intensely felt sense of grief: such grief over the loss of Mr. Kennedy and Mr. King as is felt over the loss of one's own sons." The statement is vintage Buckley: the old-fashioned use of the word datum, two colons in a single sentence, and a comforting faith in the United States. There's also an insightful and hilarious essay, which first appeared in The New Yorker, describing a life on the lecture circuit, complete with tips on how to make sure undergraduates driving you to the airport the next morning arrive at your hotel on time. This is a simply wonderful book by one of America's premier public intellectuals. --John J. Miller

About the Author:

"To brutes of the left, Mr. Buckley is Savonarola; to those on the right, he is St. Francis of Assisi. His most inimitable pieces are those that skewer the people he doesn?t like, of whom there is no shortage." That's how a New York Times essayist summed up William F. Buckley Jr. one of the most authentic and authoritative journalistic voices of conservatism today.
William F. Buckley was born in New York City in 1925. He graduated with honors from Yale University and has taught and studied at Yale, the University of Mexico, and the New School for Social Research.
In 1955 Mr. Buckley founded the conservative journal National Review. In 1962 he began his syndicated column, On the Right. Today it appears three times a week in over 300 newspapers here and abroad. In 1967 he was named Best Columnist of the Year, and he is a winner of the Distinguished Achievement Award in Journalism.
Mr. Buckley began hosting his weekly television show Firing Line in 1966. By 1971 the program was carried coast to coast on the Public Broadcasting System. When the show ended in December 1999, it was the longest-running television program in the U. S. featuring the same host. Virtually every political and intellectual leader throughout the world has been a guest on Firing Line. He has won an Emmy Award for program achievement and the TV Guide Award for the Best Television Interviewer.
In 1965 Mr. Buckley ran for mayor of New York City, and he has been a presidential appointee to the U.S. Information Agency, the United Nations, and the National Security Council (1987).
Mr. Buckley has made four transoceanic sailing voyages, journeyed to the South Pole and written such bestsellers as Atlantic High and Airborne, based on his travel experiences.
As author, his diversity holds no bounds. Mr. Buckley is philosophical in God and Man at Yale, Up from Liberalism, and Right Reason; he is autobiographical in Overdrive and The Unmaking of a Mayor; and he is creative in his fictional works, the Blackford Oakes spy tales (one of which won the American Book Award). Mr. Buckley has even written a story for children, titled The Temptation of Wilfred Malachey, and a play, which was produced at the Theatre of Louisville. His recent books include Brothers No More (1995), Buckley: The Right Word (1996), and Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith (1997). His most recent book, Let Us Talk of Many Things, is a collection of his half century as a national orator.
— From The Conservative Chronicle and Keppler Associates, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Prima Lifestyles
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0761525513
• ISBN 13: 9780761525516
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544