Syndicated columnist, television commentator, and conservative intellectual, George Frederick Will (born 1941) was influential in shaping the arguments that drove American conservatism.

Arguably the most distinguished of conservative newspaper columnists, George F. Will, with weekly television appearances and syndication by the Washington Post, had particular impact on American public discourse after the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. Born into an academic family in 1941, Will attributed his attitude, if not his politics, to the influences of his parents, Frederick L. Will, then a philosophy professor at the University of Illinois, and Louise Will, a high school teacher and editor of a children's encyclopedia. He attended Trinity College in Connecticut, Oxford University in England, and received a Ph. D. from Princeton University in political science in 1967.

Will taught at Michigan State and the University of Toronto, but in 1970 left the academic world to serve on the staff of Republican Senator...