National Review (NR) is a fortnightly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."

Although the print version of the magazine is available online to subscribers, the free content on the website is essentially a separate publication under different editorial direction.

Prior to National Review's founding in 1955, some conservatives believed that the American right was a largely unorganized collection of individuals who shared intertwining philosophies but had little opportunity for a united public voice. They also wanted to marginalize what they saw as the antiwar, noninterventionist views of the Old Right.

In 1953 moderate Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, and many major magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Time, and Reader's Digest were strongly conservative and anti-communist, as were many newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and St Louis Globe-Democrat. A few small-circulation conservative magazines, Human Events and The Freeman preceded National Review in developing Cold War Conservatism in the 1950s.

Daniel John Hannan (born 1 September 1971) is a British journalist, author and politician who is a Member of the European Parliament, representing South East England for the Conservative Party. He is also the Secretary-General of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR). An advocate of localism and a Eurosceptic, Hannan earned worldwide fame for a speech in the European Parliament criticising Gordon Brown.

After stints as a speech-writer for Michael Howard and William Hague, Hannan was elected to the European Parliament at the 1999 election. He led the campaign to withdraw the Conservative Party from the EPP–ED, and was expelled from the group in 2008. Hannan joined the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) with his Conservative colleagues when it was formed in 2009 and became Secretary-General of its sister Europarty, the AECR. He currently serves on the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the delegation to the ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. He is also President of the Young Britons' Foundation.

John Derbyshire (born June 3, 1945) is a British-American writer, journalist and commentator. He formerly wrote a column in National Review. He has also written for the New English Review. These columns cover a broad range of political-cultural topics, including immigration, China, history, mathematics, and race. Derbyshire's 1996 novel, Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, was a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year". His 2004 non-fiction book, Prime Obsession, won the Mathematical Association of America's inaugural Euler Book Prize. A new political book, We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism, was released in September 2009.

Derbyshire attended the Northampton School for Boys and graduated from University College London, where he studied mathematics. Before turning to writing full-time, he worked on Wall Street as a computer programmer.

Derbyshire has differed from his fellow writers at National Review on many subjects. For example, Derbyshire supported Michael Schiavo's position in the Terri Schiavo case, ridiculed George W. Bush's "itty-bitty tax cut, paid for by dumping a slew of federal debt on your children and grandchildren", has derided Bush in general for being too sure of his religious convictions and for his "rich-kid-ness", dismisses small-government conservatism as unlikely to ever take hold (although he is not unsympathetic to it), has called for immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq (but favored the invasion), opposes market reforms or any other changes in Social Security, is pro-choice on abortion, supports euthanasia in a fairly wide range of circumstances, and has suggested that he might (in a time of international crisis) vote for Hillary Clinton as president.

Mark Reed Levin (born September 21, 1957) is a lawyer, author and the host of American syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show. Levin served in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese. He is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, has authored bestselling books and contributes commentary to various media outlets such as National Review Online.

Mark Reed Levin was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Cheltenham High School after three years. After high school, Levin enrolled at Temple University Ambler including summer classes and graduated in 1977 at age 19, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He also earned a juris doctorate from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 1980.

Beginning in 1981, Levin served as advisor to several members of President Ronald Reagan's cabinet, eventually becoming Associate Director of Presidential Personnel and ultimately Chief of Staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese; Levin also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, and Deputy Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior.