Books, Arts & Manners

Airborne: A Sentimental Journey William F. Buckley Jr. Macmillan, 252 pp., $12.95 When last sighted between the pages of his personal chronicle, this noted American adventurer stood in the well of the United Nations General Assembly Hall. He had come to advocate human freedom in its presumed sanctuary, and found even his own government reluctant to permit him to lift his voice and hymn the glory of free men cast everywhere in chains. His cheerful disposition was sorely tried. Friends worried for his health. Adversaries feared his wrath. Journalists speculated whether this proud and ingenious explorer might not have been set back beyond repair.

Now, after two years’ indulgence in politics and belletrism, he has returned. Airborne marks the rebirth of the spirit which danced on the sidewalks of New York in The Unmaking of a Mayor, stopped the world in Cruising Speed, bent the knee to the memory of Nicholas and Alexandra in “A Million and One Nights in Soviet Russia,” and sought to dazzle humanity with eloquence in the aforementioned United Nations Journal.

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Mitchell S. Ross

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William F. Buckley Jr.

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Airborne: A Sentimental Journey William F. Buckley Jr. Macmillan, 252 pp., $12.95 When last sighted between the pages of his personal chronicle, this noted American adventurer stood in the well of the United Nations General Assembly Hall. He had come to advocate human freedom in its presumed sanctuary, and found even his own government reluctant to permit him to lift his voice and hymn the glory of free men cast everywhere in chains. His cheerful disposition was sorely tried. Friends worried for his health. Adversaries feared his wrath. Journalists speculated whether this proud and ingenious explorer might not have been set back beyond repair.

Now, after two years’ indulgence in politics and belletrism, he has returned. Airborne marks the rebirth of the spirit which danced on the sidewalks of New York in The Unmaking of a Mayor, stopped the world in Cruising Speed, bent the knee to the memory of Nicholas and Alexandra in “A Million and One Nights in Soviet Russia,” and sought to dazzle humanity with eloquence in the aforementioned United Nations Journal.