A Lefty Reviews The Man Who Invented Conservatism | The American Spectator

Joshua Tait, who reviewed my book at the Bulwark, describes my research for The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer as “an archival miracle.” I’ll take that as a win.

Elsewhere, Tait, a true-blue left-winger, describes me as “a true-blue conservative” (apparently a disqualifier for a biographer) and criticizes not so much what I wrote as what I believe and what my subject believes.

Some of his criticisms hit me as compliments: “Flynn seemingly spells out every last twist and turn behind the scenes at National Review. For those who thought Sam Tanenhaus skimped on NR lore in his new biography of William F. Buckley, this is the book for them. Otherwise, the minutiae simply overwhelm.”

Once upon a time, it was not unheard of for a left-winger to review a book by a right-wing author, or vice-versa, favorably. That time ended about 15 years ago. So, when Mr. Tait writes of “an impressive range of transnational sources,” “mountains of detail,” and research “exhaustive and genuinely impressive,” I find all this more flattering than a positive review from a conservative because, well, progressives reflexively trash conservative books when they do not ignore them.

I celebrate that I made the obligatory trashing hard for Mr. Tait.

Purchase the The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer here.