Sam Tanenhaus on William F. Buckley, Jr.

A lecture with Sam Tanenhaus on William F. Buckley, Jr. on the rise of modern conservatism—and the man who made it happen.

Filmed on 9/30/2025 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.

Biographer Sam Tanenhaus hosts a lecture on Buckley, his sweeping new portrait of William F. Buckley, Jr., the writer, commentator, and provocateur who helped launch the modern conservative movement. Drawing from exclusive interviews and never-before-seen papers, Tanenhaus traces Buckley’s influence from the Cold War to the culture wars, revealing both his public legacy and the private contradictions behind the persona.

About the speaker:
Sam Tanenhaus, the former editor of The New York Times Book Review, is the author of the national bestsellers Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize) and The Death of Conservatism. His feature articles and essays have appeared in the Atlantic, New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, New York Review of Books,Vanity Fair, and many other publications in the United States and abroad. His new book, Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, was published to wide acclaim in 2025.

Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.