Sam Tanenhaus is an American historian, journalist, and editor whose career has spanned some of the most influential institutions in media, including Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Book Review, where he served as editor.
He is the author of Whittaker Chambers, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the long-anticipated biography of William F. Buckley Jr., a project decades in the making. Tanenhaus’s work explores the evolution of American conservatism and the figures who shaped it, offering a rare combination of historical depth and cultural insight.
Across his writing and commentary, he has become one of the most respected voices examining how ideas, movements, and media have defined American political life.
WHAT WE DISCUSSED