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Biography & Autobiography. History. Nonfiction. HTML:From master storyteller and New York Times bestselling Historian H. W. Brands comes the definitive biography of a visionary and transformative president In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan�??s personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism, Brands shows, and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today. Reagan follows young Ronald Reagan as his ambition for ever larger stages compelled him to leave behind small-town Illinois to become first a radio announcer and then that quintessential public figure of modern America, a movie star. When his acting career stalled, his reinvention as the voice of The General Electric Theater on television made him an unlikely spokesman for corporate America. Then began Reagan�??s improbable political ascension, starting in the 1960s, when he was first elected governor of California, and culminating in his election in 1980 as president of the United States. Employing archival sources not available to previous biographers and drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving members of Reagan�??s administration, Brands has crafted a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of the presidential years. He offers new insights into Reagan�??s remote management style and fractious West Wing staff, his deft handling of public sentiment to transform the tax code, and his deeply misunderstood relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on which nothing less than the fate of the world turned. Reagan is a storytelling triumph, an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed… (more)
User reviews
I'm a big fan of Steven Hayward's two-volume Reagan biography, and I wouldn't give that one up. But at half the pages, this one is a more approachable
Some things I didn't know about Reagan: he was a completely hands-off leader. He was a trusting man and let his staff do what they
For anyone who, like me, owns scads of works on Reagan, there will be things here and there that you find missing or wishing were discussed. For instance, only a drop in the bucket of the the anti-Soviet campaign conducted by Reagan and his cohorts is detailed (like, say, covert funding for Solidarity is not mentioned; the monies poured into Afghanistan, and its effects on the USSR are barely mentioned). Other things are senselessly added, like an entire chapter (32) about the conspiracy theory that someone around Reagan secretly had the Iranians keep the hostages so Carter would be defeated in 1980. It's a debunked accusation that should have been mentioned and dismissed in two sentences, not in a chapter that leaves you thinking, "Well, maybe there is something there..." because, there isn't.
Reagan's charm is evident throughout, as is the present-day psychological/psychohistorical trope that his personality stems from dealing with his alcoholic father in childhood. (Nelle, his mother, and her Christianity and that printer of Udell's, have, for Brands, little impact.) Still, Brands spends ample time on his childhood and Hollywood days (as many biographers often skip right over such material.) Reagan is often presented as more pragmatic than idea-driven, which is true to a certain extent, though it may lead to the impression that Reagan's decisions had no core of belief behind them, which is untrue. Brands tries to correct this impression and implication by oft-repeating a Reagan maxim "I'd rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over the cliff with my flags flying." Brands focuses more on Reagan's attempt to reduce nuclear weapons with Gorbachev than his attempt to spend them to the bargaining table and/or death. It pops up here and there (like p. 687), but it is never explicitly stated. Jane Wyman was not dealt with extensively. La tee dah.
I could go on endlessly about what is good or what is bad about the narrative. But all in all, it's a grade A job, providing a fair, engaging, and historical account of Reagan's life, presidency, and legacy. Brands ends by comparing Reagan to FDR in a neat, and I think useful, fashion (pp. 733-734), and noting his luck and focus (pp. 734-735). Liberals often tend to say Reagan played no role in ending the Cold War, for instance, it was luck Gorby was there, or that Reagan played no role in the good economy of the 1980s, it was just luck, Volcker was there. Brands deftly, almost imperceptibly, counters this line of thinking in a few paragraphs of logic and analysis. Good stuff. Brands is, I'm sure, not a right-winger, but he is fair enough and sober enough to not treat Reagan like a monster, or tarnish him for the sake of Fabian socialism, or the like. He corrects much leftist invective, but in inconspicuous ways. Take, for instance, the chapter on AIDS (ch. 100). Many liberals will claim that Reagan "did nothing" when it came to AIDS, that there was no research, that he let people die, that he hated gays, what have you. Some on the fringes of Democratic silliness will even claim his government created AIDS (look it up). But Brands notes, quietly himself, that "He [Reagan] quietly allowed money for AIDS research to be included in the federal budget" (p. 656), more than $100 million each year, before noting he did speak out about AIDS. But, still, many seem to think he did nothing, and hate him for it. But I digress.
Grade A work, but why four stars? The idiotic endnoting system of "201 A Gallup survey" and "201 'We've got to go out there'" etc. Stupid. And worse, no bibliography. There is a "Sources" section, but it is merely a weak form of bibliographical essay that is of little use to both a casual reader and a Reagan aficionado. Why is there no bibliography? Asinine, and criminal. The picture selection was, I thought, weak as well. Thus, four stars.
All said, however, this is a good read and heartily recommended for all.