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At the Cato Institute, he argued against government interference in Americans’ lives, including policing their drug use, and supported legal equality for gay people.

Tipped off by the detective Frank Serpico, he wrote an explosive series on police corruption in New York City, sparking an investigation by the Knapp commission.

After nearly 40 years as a professor, he began a new career writing poems and translating classics. He won a National Book Award when he was 86.

For over 50 years, as a historian, lecturer and author, he fought to protect Beaux-Arts buildings in New York and Chicago from falling to the developer’s wrecking ball.

Once a Marxist, he came to embrace hard-right positions, including the falsehood that Mr. Trump won in 2020, and to mentor Stephen Miller, later the Trump adviser.

His 15 well-plotted novels teemed with romance and strange coincidence. An erudite literary critic with an ear for language, he also wrote a raft of nonfiction books.

The author of novels, histories, biographies and influential political essays, he approached them all with a droll British wit and a steadfast commitment to Western values.

He wrote more than 130 books, mostly collections of poetry and translations of classics, as well as lowbrow novels under a pen name.

A renowned member of the New York School of poets, he also found accidental notoriety when he was photographed during the 1968 uprising at Columbia University.

The author of influential books and essays, he was known for a contemporary theory of religion and Catholicism that advocated dialogue, not decrees.