Cruising Speed by William F Buckley, Jr torrent

There may not seem much use in a book about old political skirmishes involving people who are mostly dead, but if you wonder how politics in America got to where it is today, this 1971 journal of a week in the life of William F. Buckley, Jr. is a good place to start.

Buckley is the godfather of the modern American conservative movement. In 1955, he saw the signs of change that would result in the social revolution that was America in the '60s: black civil rights, the women's movement, the youth rebellion, a more liberal church, and even the first signs of the struggle for gay equality. His response was "National Review," a magazine, that, as he wrote in the very first issue, "stands athwart history, yelling Stop."

Autobiographical works are almost always self-serving, and the Buckley of PBS's "Firing Line"--witty, urbane, sharply intelligent--is there in full, but, if you read carefully, you can get a glimpse behind the façade.

(In 1983, he published a follow-up, "Overdrive" which is included in the package.)

Genre: Politics