The Movement James Burnham Began
David Byrne, the author of a recent biography of the mid-century conservative intellectual James Burnham, traces the thinker's influence on Goldwater, on Reagan, on Musk.
James Burnham, who lived from 1905 to 1987, began his intellectual career as a disciple of Leon Trotsky and ended it as William F. Buckley’s mentor at National Review. He influenced figures from George Orwell to President Ronald Reagan, from C. Wright Mills to Senator Barry Goldwater. More recently, Burnham has been called an embryonic neoconservative and a proto-Trumpist. Both assessments are correct.
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