If Not Us, Who?

Best known as the longtime publisher of National Review, William Rusher (1923–2011) was more than just a crucial figure in the history of the Right’s leading magazine. He was a political intellectual, tactician, and strategist who helped shape the historic rise of conservatism.

To write If Not Us, Who?, author David B. Frisk pored over Rusher’s voluminous papers at the Library of Congress and interviewed dozens of insiders, including National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., in addition to Rusher himself. Frisk captures the joys and struggles at National Review, including Rusher’s complex relationship with the legendary Buckley. He also highlights the powerful blend of wit, erudition, dedication, shrewdness, and earnestness that made Rusher an influential figure at NR and an indispensable link between conservatism’s leading theorists and its political practitioners.

If Not Us, Who? is both the story of an architect of the modern conservative movement and a colorful journey through a half century of high-level politics. 

    William A. Rusher is one of the premier examples of the rare combination of thought and 
    action, and David Frisk has performed an important service to history and the conservative
    movement in telling Rusher’s story so thoroughly and insightfully. 
        —Steven F. Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan

    It is something of a scandal that Rusher has not had a fully realized biography of his own. 
    David Frisk has remedied that with this exhaustive but thoroughly engaging examination of 
    Rusher’s monumental life and legacy. 
        —Jonah Goldberg, contributing editor of National Review and best-selling author of 
        Liberal Fascism