Paperback reprint. Originally published: 2019.

A lively chronicle of the 1960s through the surprisingly close and incredibly contentious friendship of its two most colorful characters. Norman Mailer and William F. Buckley, Jr., were towering personalities who argued publicly and vociferously about every major issue of the 1960s: the counterculture, Vietnam, feminism, civil rights, the Cold War. Behind the scenes, the two were friends and trusted confidantes. In Buckley and Mailer, historian Kevin M. Schultz delivers a fresh and enlightening chronicle of that tumultuous decade through the rich story of what Mailer called their "difficult friendship." From their public debate before the Floyd Patterson–Sonny Liston heavyweight fight and their confrontation at Truman Capote’s Black-and-White Ball, to their involvement in cultural milestones like the antiwar rally in Berkeley and the March on the Pentagon, Buckley and Mailer explores these extraordinary figures’ contrasting visions of America.

Americans have never been more divided, and we’re ripe for a breakup. The bitter partisan animosities, the legislative gridlock, the growing acceptance of violence in the name of political virtue—it all invites us to think that we’d be happier were we two different countries. In all the ways that matter, save for the naked force of law, we are already two nations. There’s another reason why secession beckons, says F.H. Buckley: we’re too big. In population and area, the United States is one of the biggest countries in the world, and American Secession provides data showing that smaller countries are happier and less corrupt. They’re less inclined to throw their weight around militarily, and they’re freer too. There are advantages to bigness, certainly, but the costs exceed the benefits. On many counts, bigness is badness. Across the world, large countries are staring down secession movements. Many have already split apart. Do we imagine that we, almost alone in the world, are immune? We had a civil war to prevent a secession, and we’re tempted to see that terrible precedent as proof against another effort. This book explodes that comforting belief and shows just how easy it would be for a state to exit the Union if that’s what its voters wanted. But if that isn’t what we really want, Buckley proposes another option, a kind of Secession Lite, that could heal our divisions while allowing us to keep our identity as Americans.

Conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal author Gore Vidal exploded onto the political scene during the presidential conventions of 1968 when they debated 11 times on ABC News as a part of the network s unconventional convention coverage. The debates were fiery and combative and they infamously blew up at each other during their penultimate debate in Chicago. The debates, the subject of the new documentary film Best of Enemies, have not been shown or transcribed in their entirety since the original airings in 1968. The Devault-GravesAgency -- the publisher that made world news in 2014 by publishing Three Early Stories, the first J.D. Salinger book in 50 years -- exclusively brings you the complete, uncensored Buckley-Vidal transcripts in all their highly readable glory. The book also features an eloquent and informative introduction by one of the directors of Best of Enemies, author Robert Gordon. This book will appeal to the legion of fans and readers of both Buckley and Vidal. Students of debate will find no better guide to the art of verbal fencing than Buckley vs. Vidal. Libraries throughout the U.S. will want Buckley vs. Vidal as the official record of the most infamous debates of the last half-century by two of the most important social arbiters of the era. Buckley vs. Vidal will be a textbook of style and substance to any aspiring debater, or those already in the fray. "