Kendall is an important, but often neglected, figure in the conservative intellectual movement. At a time when conservatives are wrestling with the question of populism, Kendall’s thought is especially timely. Christopher Owen's book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of American conservatism, and it presents Kendall's unique approach to key questions about democracy and the U.S. Constitution.
— George Hawley, University of Alabama
Long after his death the legend of Willmoore Kendall endures: brilliant, provocative, exuberantly fecund, ruinously destructive of himself and others-- as attested by fascinated witnesses like Saul Bellow, William F. Buckley Jr, and Garry Wills. Now, thanks to this engrossing and thoroughly researched biography, the real-life Kendall comes before us in all his bristling complexity, the great teacher and great disrupter, more relevant, interesting, and surprising than ever.
— Sam Tanenhaus, author of The Death of Conservatism
This is the biography that Willmoore Kendall, defender of populist conservatism, deserves. In this fascinating portrayal of Kendall’s colorful life, including periods as a socialist, journalist, CIA analyst, teacher, and scholar, the reader is treated to a riveting discussion of a conservative who never lost his faith in the good sense of the American people even as he warned of movements and ideas that threatened to trigger civil war. As the author brilliantly shows, Kendall’s life and persona mirrored the tensions and paradoxes of American conservatism which persist to this day.
— Grant Havers, Trinity Western University
Willmoore Kendall was probably the most controversial American political theorist of his time. Brilliant, iconoclastic, and disputatious, he became the leading exponent of what is now called populist conservatism, an amalgam increasingly prominent today. In this deft and discerning biography, Christopher Owen traces the course of Kendall's turbulent career and intellectual journey from Left to Right. Few who encountered Kendall or his writings ever forgot them. Owen's illuminating volume explains why and--in the process--clarifies the tensions that continue to shape American politics.
— George H. Nash, author of The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945
Christopher Owen ably and succinctly narrates the life story of Kendall, a remarkably unconventional individual who nevertheless believed in the wisdom of crowds.... Among the virtues of Owen’s book is the attention it devotes to Kendall’s career in intelligence, including his time overseeing a psychological-warfare project during the Korean War.
— National Review