Garry Wills
Garry Wills | |
|---|---|
 Wills at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in 2015 | |
| Born | May 22, 1934 Atlanta, Georgia, US |
| Occupation |
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| Alma mater |
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| Notable works |
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| Notable awards | (1998) |
| Spouse |
Natalie Cavallo
(m. 1959; died 2019) |
Garry Wills (born May 22, 1934) is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1993.
Wills has written over fifty books and, since 1973, has been a frequent reviewer for
Early years
Wills was born on May 22, 1934, in
Wills earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Louis University in 1957 and a Master of Arts degree from Xavier University in 1958, both in philosophy. William F. Buckley Jr. hired him as a drama critic for National Review magazine at the age of 23. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in classics from Yale University in 1961.[4] He taught history at Johns Hopkins University from 1962 to 1980, and is a fellow at the University of Edinburgh.[5]
Personal life
Wills was married for sixty years (1959–2019) to Natalie Cavallo, a collaborator and photographer for his work. They have three children: John, Garry, and Lydia.[4][6]
A trained
Religion
Wills was a Catholic and, with the exception of a period of doubt during his
In a May 2024 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wills revealed that he no longer considers himself a Catholic nor takes communion. Instead he refers to himself as an "Augustinian Christian." Wills attributes this change to the influence of his late wife, Natalie, who died in 2019 after 60 years of marriage and deeply influenced his thinking on everything from the day that he met her on an airplane two years before they married. Wills is pursuing the idea of writing a book on leaving Catholicism.[8]
Wills has also been a critic of many aspects of
In 1961, in a phone conversation with
Wills published a full-length analysis of the contemporary Catholic Church, Bare Ruined Choirs, in 1972 and a full-scale criticism of the historical and contemporary church, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, in 2000. He followed up the latter with a sequel, Why I Am a Catholic (2002), as well as with the books What Jesus Meant (2006), What Paul Meant (2006), and What the Gospels Meant (2008).
Politics
Wills began his career as an early protégé of William F. Buckley Jr. and was associated with
However, during the 1960s and 1970s, driven by his coverage of both
In 1995, Wills wrote an article about the Second Amendment for The New York Review of Books. It was originally titled "Why We Have No Right to Bear Arms", but that was not Wills's conclusion. He neither wrote the title nor approved it prior to the article's publication.[18] Instead, Wills argued that the Second Amendment refers to the right to keep and bear arms in a military context only, rather than justifying private ownership and use of guns. Furthermore, he said the military context did not entail the right of individuals to overthrow the government of the United States:
The Standard Model finds, squirrelled away in the Second Amendment, not only a private right to own guns for any purpose but a public right to oppose with arms the government of the United States. It grounds this claim in the right of
Article III: 'Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them . . .') and then instructs its citizens to take this up (in the Second Amendment). According to this doctrine, a well-regulated group is meant to overthrow its own regulator, and a soldier swearing to obey orders is disqualified from true militia virtue.— Garry Wills, 1995[19]
Public appraisal
The New York Times literary critic John Leonard said in 1970 that Wills "reads like a combination of H. L. Mencken, John Locke and Albert Camus."[20] The Catholic journalist John L. Allen Jr. considers Wills to be "perhaps the most distinguished Catholic intellectual in America over the last 50 years" (as of 2008[update]).[10] Martin Gardner in "The Strange Case of Garry Wills" states there is a "mystery and strangeness that hovers like a gray fog over everything Wills has written about his faith".[21]
Honors
- 1978: Inventing America—National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction (co-winner, with Facts of Life by Maureen Howard)[22]
- 1979: Inventing America—Merle Curti Award
- 1982: Honorary degree of L.H.D. by the College of the Holy Cross
- 1992: Lincoln at Gettysburg—National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
- 1993: Lincoln at Gettysburg—Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction[23]
- 1995: Honorary degree from Bates College
- 1998: National Medal for the Humanities[4]
- 2001: The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement[24]
- 2003: Inducted to the American Philosophical Society[25]
- 2004: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates[26][27]
- Inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2006 in the area of Communication and Education.[28]
Works
- Chesterton: Man and Mask, ISBN 978-0-385-50290-0
- Animals of the Bible (1962)
- Politics and Catholic Freedom (1964)
- Roman Culture: Weapons and the Man (1966), ISBN 0-8076-0367-8
- The Second Civil War: Arming for Armageddon (1968)
- Jack Ruby (1968), ISBN 0-306-80564-2
- Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-made Man (1970, 1979), ISBN 0-451-61750-9
- Bare Ruined Choirs: Doubt, Prophecy, and Radical Religion (1972), ISBN 0-385-08970-8
- Values Americans Live By (1973), ISBN 0-405-04166-7
- Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (1978), ISBN 0-385-08976-7
- Confessions of a Conservative (1979), ISBN 0-385-08977-5
- At Button's (1979), ISBN 0-8362-6108-9
- Explaining America: The Federalist (1981), ISBN 0-385-14689-2
- The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power (1982), ISBN 0-316-94385-1
- Lead Time: A Journalist's Education (1983), ISBN 0-385-17695-3
- Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (1984), ISBN 0-385-17562-0
- Reagan's America: Innocents at Home (1987), ISBN 0-385-18286-4
- Under God: Religion and American Politics (1990), ISBN 0-671-65705-4
- ISBN 0-671-76956-1
- Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders (1994), ISBN 0-671-65702-X
- Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth (1995), ISBN 0-19-508879-4
- John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity (1997), ISBN 0-684-80823-4
- Saint Augustine (1999), ISBN 0-670-88610-6
- Saint Augustine's Childhood (2001), ISBN 0-670-03001-5
- Saint Augustine's Memory (2002), ISBN 0-670-03127-5
- Saint Augustine's Sin (2003), ISBN 0-670-03241-7
- Saint Augustine's Conversion (2004), ISBN 0-670-03352-9
- A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government (1999), ISBN 0-684-84489-3
- Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (2000), ISBN 0-385-49410-6
- Venice: Lion City: The Religion of Empire (2001), ISBN 0-684-87190-4
- Why I Am a Catholic (2002), ISBN 0-618-13429-8
- Mr. Jefferson's University (2002), ISBN 0-7922-6531-9
- James Madison (2002), ISBN 0-8050-6905-4
- Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power (2003), ISBN 0-618-34398-9
- Henry Adams and the Making of America (2005), ISBN 0-618-13430-1
- The Rosary: Prayer Comes Round (2005), ISBN 0-670-03449-5
- What Jesus Meant (2006), ISBN 0-670-03496-7
- What Paul Meant (2006), ISBN 0-670-03793-1
- Bush's Fringe Government (2006), ISBN 978-1590172100
- Head and Heart: American Christianities (2007), ISBN 978-1-59420-146-2
- What the Gospels Meant (2008), ISBN 0-670-01871-6
- Bomb Power (2010), ISBN 978-1-59420-240-7
- Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer (2010), ISBN 978-0-670-02214-4
- Augustine's 'Confessions': A Biography (2011), ISBN 978-0691143576
- Verdi's Shakespeare: Men of the Theater (2011), ISBN 978-0670023042
- Rome and Rhetoric: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2011), ISBN 978-0300152180
- Font of Life: Ambrose, Augustine, and the Mystery of Baptism (2012), ISBN 978-0199768516
- Why Priests? (2013), ISBN 978-0670024872
- Making Make-Believe Real: Politics as Theater in Shakespeare's Time (2014) ISBN 978-0-300-19753-2
- The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis (March 2015), ISBN 978-0525426967
- What The Qur'an Meant and Why It Matters (2017), ISBN 978-1-101-98102-3
References
- New York Review of Bookswebsite
- ^ Library of America.Biography of Garry Wills Archived June 5, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Miles, Jack. "The Loyal Opposition".[permanent dead link]
- ^ a b c d "Winners of the 1998 National Medal for the Humanities". Deconstructing Performance: Garry Wills's Eye on History. National Endowment for the Humanities. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved February 26, 2010.
- ^ "Garry Wills". January 23, 2024.
- ^ Witt, Linda (April 5, 1982). "Garry Wills Dismantles Camelot and Finds Some Prisoners Within – Jack, Bob and Ted Kennedy". People. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2012.
- ^ Hoover, Bob (February 21, 2010). "Non-fiction: "Bomb Power," by Garry Wills". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- ^ a b Borrelli, Christopher (May 30, 2024). ""Garry Wills at 90:The influential historian has become his own iconoclast"". Chicago Tribune.
- ^ ISBN 0-618-38048-5.
- ^ a b c d Allen, John L Jr. (November 21, 2008). "'Poped out' Wills seeks broader horizons". National Catholic Reporter.
- ISBN 9780385494113.
- ^ Wills, Garry (November 4, 2007). "'Abortion isn't a religious issue'". Los Angeles Times.
- New York Review of Books.
- ^ Wills, Garry (August 15, 2002). "The Bishops at Bay". New York Review of Books.
- ISBN 0-671-69593-2.
Wills ... did not know whether he was a conservative (he called himself a 'distributionist')
- ^ "Nixon's Enemies List Search Results". www.enemieslist.info.
- ^ Kurutz, Steven (October 20, 2010). "Garry Wills on Obama 'Disappointment' and the Tea Party 'Zoo'". The Wall Street Journal.
- well-regulated militia."
- ^ Wills, Garry (September 21, 1995). "To Keep and Bear Arms". The New York Review of Books.
- ^ Leonard, John (October 15, 1970). "Books of the Times: Mr. Nixon as the Last Liberal". Review of Nixon Agonistes. The New York Times.
- ISBN 0-393-05742-9.
- Bookcritics.org. Archived from the originalon April 27, 2019. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ "Pulitzer Prize Winners: General Nonfiction". pulitzer.org. Retrieved March 10, 2008.
- ^ The Lincoln Forum
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
- ^ "Saint Louis Literary Award - Saint Louis University". www.slu.edu. Archived from the original on August 23, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2012.
- ^ Saint Louis University Library Associates. "Author Garry Wills to Receive 2004 St. Louis Literary Award". Retrieved July 25, 2016.
- ^ "Laureates by Year - The Lincoln Academy of Illinois". The Lincoln Academy of Illinois. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
Further reading
- Perlstein, Rick, "The American Atom", Bookforum: Rick Perlstein talks to Garry Wills about "The Bomb".
- Delbanco, Andrew, "The Right-Wing Christians", New York Review of Books, Review of Wills's Head and Heart: American Christianities.
- New York Times, "Featured Author" page.
- New York Times, Index of articles about Garry Wills, (covers 1983 to 2008).
- Northwestern University, History Faculty of NW university Archived December 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- Wills at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, a live conversation with Dean Alan Jones (archived)
- Wills, Garry, October 13, 2007, Lecture[usurped] at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. to promote his book, Head and Heart.
External links
