Customer Reviews

Confessions of a Conservative

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This book is part autobiography and part essay. While Wills appears to have led a charmed life - breaking easily into conservative journalism and finding love at the same time - it is the essays that are in my opinion the best part of the book. In them, he argues with great sense about why the lack of hard and unyielding convictions in politicians is a good and useful thing (it is their job to horse trade); and why radical change can destroy more than help (society is like a complex living organism). I have thought about these simple, pragmatic ideas for years, and he articulates them better than anyone. The art of politics in democracy is careful change, when society is ready but also when it becomes necessary. He also takes cynics, like Tom Wolfe, to task for ridiculing the liberal and radical pretentions of celebrities.

This is a truly wonderful book, which too few people have ever read, from one of America's best political writers. It is ironic that, while he identifies himself as a conservative, the drift to the right of American politics in the last 25 years makes him sound more and more like a liberal.