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richardbakare 's review for:
“The Fire Is Upon Us” is a wonderfully written and academically rigorous achievement. It is so rewarding and gripping from the first page to the last. I found it hard to put down and left desperate for when it ended. Why was it so compelling, because it uses two iconoclasts as the mouthpiece for the oldest debate regarding America.
The detailed historical build up to the debate creates a balanced account of the ideologies on both sides. Yet in being clear and factual, Nicholas Buccola still arrives at the unavoidable truth. That even the most eloquent of conservative mouthpieces are crippled by the moral and rational shortcomings of the core fault in their arguments. Specifically, how conservative politics never seeks to address root issues but instead maintain power.
The portraits Buccola outlines between the two men is as much about the differences they had as it is about what they had in common. These two sons of America began at wildly divergent starting points. Their journeys overlapping and orbiting one another like atomic particles bound for collision. And what an impact when they do meet. The highlight that is the debate is vividly retold in language that puts you right into the auditorium and has you pumping fists or cringing.
It’s the characterization of the debate that night and what followed that gets you truly hooked in. One part of you wishing for political discourse of our time should be as deep and engaging as the battle between Buckley and Baldwin. Instead we have Faux News and Twitterati. The other side of you seeing that the debate is a jarring reflection on the political climate of today, perhaps more civil. Yet, the inability for two of the most prominent minds on the racial divide to see eye-to-eye makes you wonder if we collectively ever will.
The detailed historical build up to the debate creates a balanced account of the ideologies on both sides. Yet in being clear and factual, Nicholas Buccola still arrives at the unavoidable truth. That even the most eloquent of conservative mouthpieces are crippled by the moral and rational shortcomings of the core fault in their arguments. Specifically, how conservative politics never seeks to address root issues but instead maintain power.
The portraits Buccola outlines between the two men is as much about the differences they had as it is about what they had in common. These two sons of America began at wildly divergent starting points. Their journeys overlapping and orbiting one another like atomic particles bound for collision. And what an impact when they do meet. The highlight that is the debate is vividly retold in language that puts you right into the auditorium and has you pumping fists or cringing.
It’s the characterization of the debate that night and what followed that gets you truly hooked in. One part of you wishing for political discourse of our time should be as deep and engaging as the battle between Buckley and Baldwin. Instead we have Faux News and Twitterati. The other side of you seeing that the debate is a jarring reflection on the political climate of today, perhaps more civil. Yet, the inability for two of the most prominent minds on the racial divide to see eye-to-eye makes you wonder if we collectively ever will.