The Importance of Curiosity

Curiosity was once thought to be, in the words of English historian G.M. Trevelyan, “the life blood of real civilization.” Frank Buckley laments that “there’s less curiosity today than in the past,” and has written a new book, Curiosity and Its Twelve Rules for Life, in an attempt to rectify the dearth. If this mission seems far afield for a legal academic, Buckley defies the conventional stereotype of a law professor. In addition to his considerable body of scholarly work, Buckley is a senior editor of The American Spectator, a columnist for the New York Post, and served as an advocate of and occasional speech writer for the President that many academics love to hate, Donald Trump.

In light of his demonstrated curiosity regarding a host of different subjects, Buckley’s foray into curiosity is not surprising. He is a prolific author and versatile scholar. While teaching at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School (since 1989), Buckley has written numerous legal articles and books on a variety of topics (including a couple that I reviewed for Law & Liberty and elsewhere), ranging from a technical critique of the American legal system to a rumination on the possibility of secession. Truly eclectic, Buckley was educated (and holds dual citizenship) in Canada and the U.S., helped run the law and economics program at George Mason for over a decade, and has taught at the Sorbonne.

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