Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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85 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Buckley Classic, June 25, 2003
This seminal work of one of the most courageous conservative thinkers of the 20th and 21st centuries laid the groundwork on which numerous other media voices built. He descrbes how it all started when he was an undergraduate at Yale University from 1946-1950. He writes from his conscious. Buckley is precise in describing how he felt traditional American values were being ignored, undermined, and distorted by academics. He makes his case by citing specific classes, instructors, and textbooks. In the revised edition he brings readers up to date on how critics and the public responded when the book originally came out. Buckley earned the right to be the quintessential role model for conservatives because of his courage and gift of clearly communicating his argument in a logical manner. There are no ad hominem fallacies here or in any of his writings. He confronts isses head on. He even discusses his motive for writing the book by saying it is tied to his love for his alma mater and the country in general. By that he means his desire is for constructive change. It is in pointing out the errors that he hopes to achieve the positive resolutions he seeks. Buckley has remained a voice worthy of an audience in the marketplace of ideas for decades. This is the book that launched him and it is worth reading at any point in time.
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80 of 94 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Common Sense View of Education Too Profound for the Elite, October 17, 1999
By A Customer
Superbly written. Easy to understand. And full of common sense. It was probably its "common sense" that caused liberal academicians of Yale and other prestigious "institutes of higher learning" to reject Buckley's assessment and recommendations. For the "wisdom" was (and is) that if it's not sufficiently profound and complex, then it cannot be relevant or useful. Yet, Buckley's common sense suggestions for reforming the methods of education were (and are) right on target. By rejecting what he said out of hand, the stage was set for post-modern relativism that is rampant at "institutes of higher learning" as we enter the 21st century. A lot has happened since Buckley wrote this book, including the discrediting of collectivist ideologies and the collapse of Communism. But despite the passage of time, Buckley's words still ring true because they are rooted in conservative principles - principles based on the constancy of man's nature. My only regret is that since the writing of this book, Buckley has embraced the "snobbish" dialect of the english language. Consequently, his more recent books repel the simple man in search of common sense. Pity too since Buckley still dispenses much common sense.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
OUR CAMPUSES IN CONTEXT, June 14, 2004
Long before the battles between the Randians, Goldwaterites and Rockefeller wing of the GOP; before the Reagan Revolution and the Contract with America, even before Whittaker Chambers' "Witness", there was young Bill Buckley, Russell Kirk and a few little-known economists preaching conservatism. Lost in the McCarthy rhetoric, the underpinnings of conservatism were drowned out, but Buckley was and continues to be a voice that gives it reason.The prescience of this book is in its dissection of liberalism on college campuses, and centers on the modernist swing away from God and towards Man. Buckley's best argument throughout the work might be called the "marketplace of ideas," which today conservatives are winning. He points out the political views of many of the families who send their kids to college, particularly Yale. Most of the parents are found to disagree with the new Leftist stridency of Yale and other colleges, but the parents have little if any choice in the matter of getting their children educated within a more balanced environment. This situation has not gotten better over the years. Reading "God and Man At Yale" teaches us that campus radicalism did not begin during the Vietnam War. STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
STWRITES@AOL.COM
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by William F. Buckley Jr.
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by Mark R. Levin
