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Author: Max Boot
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 0871409453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 707
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Book Description
Son of the Midwest, movie star, and mesmerizing politician—America’s fortieth president comes to three-dimensional life in this gripping and profoundly revisionist biography. In this “monumental and impressive” biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president’s aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot provides “the best biography of Ronald Reagan to date” (Robert Mann). The story begins not in star-studded Hollywood but in the cradle of the Midwest, small-town Illinois, where Reagan was born in 1911 to Nelle Clyde Wilson, a devoted Disciples of Christ believer, and Jack Reagan, a struggling, alcoholic salesman. Boot vividly creates a portrait of a handsome young man, indeed a much-vaunted lifeguard, whose early successes mirrored those of Horatio Alger. And contextualizing Reagan’s life against American history, Boot re-creates the world in which Reagan transitioned from local Iowa sportscaster to budding screen actor. The world of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1950s would prove significant, not only in Reagan’s coming-of-age in such classics as Knute Rockne and Kings Row but during the twilight of his film career, when he played opposite a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo, and then his eventual emergence as a television host of General Electric Theater, which established his bona fides as one of the leading conservative voices of the time. Indeed, the leap to California governor in 1966 seemed almost preordained, in which Reagan became a bellwether for a nation in the throes of a generational shift. Reagan’s 1980 presidential election augured a shift that continues into this century. Boot writes not as a partisan but as a historian seeking to set the story straight. He explains how Reagan was an ideologue but also a supreme pragmatist who signed pro-abortion and gun control bills as governor, cut deals with Democrats in both Sacramento and Washington, and befriended Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War. A master communicator, Reagan revived America’s spirits after the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. But Boot also shows how Reagan was armored in obliviousness. He traces Reagan’s opposition to civil rights over forty years, reveals how he neglected the exploding AIDS epidemic, and details how America experienced a level of income inequality not seen since the Gilded Age. With its revelatory insights, Reagan: His Life and Legend is no apologia, depicting a man with a good-versus-evil worldview derived from his moralistic upbringing and Hollywood westerns. Providing fresh examinations of “trickle-down economics,” the Cold War’s end, the Iran-Contra affair, as well as a nuanced portrait of Reagan’s family, this definitive biography is as compelling a presidential biography as any in recent decades.
Author: Max Boot
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 0871409453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 707
Get Book Here
Book Description
Son of the Midwest, movie star, and mesmerizing politician—America’s fortieth president comes to three-dimensional life in this gripping and profoundly revisionist biography. In this “monumental and impressive” biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president’s aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot provides “the best biography of Ronald Reagan to date” (Robert Mann). The story begins not in star-studded Hollywood but in the cradle of the Midwest, small-town Illinois, where Reagan was born in 1911 to Nelle Clyde Wilson, a devoted Disciples of Christ believer, and Jack Reagan, a struggling, alcoholic salesman. Boot vividly creates a portrait of a handsome young man, indeed a much-vaunted lifeguard, whose early successes mirrored those of Horatio Alger. And contextualizing Reagan’s life against American history, Boot re-creates the world in which Reagan transitioned from local Iowa sportscaster to budding screen actor. The world of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1950s would prove significant, not only in Reagan’s coming-of-age in such classics as Knute Rockne and Kings Row but during the twilight of his film career, when he played opposite a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo, and then his eventual emergence as a television host of General Electric Theater, which established his bona fides as one of the leading conservative voices of the time. Indeed, the leap to California governor in 1966 seemed almost preordained, in which Reagan became a bellwether for a nation in the throes of a generational shift. Reagan’s 1980 presidential election augured a shift that continues into this century. Boot writes not as a partisan but as a historian seeking to set the story straight. He explains how Reagan was an ideologue but also a supreme pragmatist who signed pro-abortion and gun control bills as governor, cut deals with Democrats in both Sacramento and Washington, and befriended Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War. A master communicator, Reagan revived America’s spirits after the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. But Boot also shows how Reagan was armored in obliviousness. He traces Reagan’s opposition to civil rights over forty years, reveals how he neglected the exploding AIDS epidemic, and details how America experienced a level of income inequality not seen since the Gilded Age. With its revelatory insights, Reagan: His Life and Legend is no apologia, depicting a man with a good-versus-evil worldview derived from his moralistic upbringing and Hollywood westerns. Providing fresh examinations of “trickle-down economics,” the Cold War’s end, the Iran-Contra affair, as well as a nuanced portrait of Reagan’s family, this definitive biography is as compelling a presidential biography as any in recent decades.
Author: H. W. Brands
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307951146
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 834
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Book Description
From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War—and "the rare academic historian who can write like a bestselling novelist" (USA Today)—comes an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed the nation. 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. 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. Look for H.W. Brands's other biographies: THE FIRST AMERICAN (Benjamin Franklin), ANDREW JACKSON, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE UNION (Ulysses S. Grant), and TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS (Franklin Roosevelt).
Author: Peggy Noonan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0142001686
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
No one has ever captured Ronald Reagan like Peggy Noonan. In When Character Was King, Noonan brings her own reflections on Reagan to bear as well as new stories—from Presidents George W. Bush and his father, George H. W. Bush, his Secret Service men and White House colleagues, his wife, his daughter Patti Davis, and his close friends—to reveal the true nature of a man even his opponents now view as a maker of big history. Marked by incisive wit and elegant prose, When Character Was King will both enlighten and move readers. It may well be the last word on Ronald Reagan, not only as a leader but as a man.
Author: Lou Cannon
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786739215
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 622
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Book Description
In Governor Reagan, Lou Cannon offers -- through recent interviews and research drawn from his unique access to the cabinet minutes of Reagan's first years as governor of California -- a fresh look at the development of a master politician. At first, Reagan suffered from political amateurism, an inexperienced staff, and ideological blind spots. But he quickly learned to take the measure of the Democrats who controlled the State Legislature and surprised friends and foes alike by agreeing to a huge tax increase, which made it possible for him to govern for eight years without additional tax hikes. He developed an environmental policy that preserved the state 's scenic valleys and wild rivers, and he signed into law what was then the nation's most progressive declaration on abortion rights. His quixotic 1968 presidential campaign revealed his higher ambitions to the world and taught him how much he had to learn about big-league politics. Written by the definitive biographer of Ronald Reagan, this new biography is a classic study of a fascinating individual's evolution from a conservative hero to a national figure whose call for renewal stirred Republicans, working-class Democrats, and independents alike.
Author: Peggy Noonan
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812969898
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
On the hundredth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth comes the twentieth-anniversary edition of Peggy Noonan’s critically acclaimed bestseller What I Saw at the Revolution, for which she provides a new Preface that demonstrates this book’s timeless relevance. As a special assistant to the president, Noonan worked with Ronald Reagan—and with Vice President George H. W. Bush—on some of their most memorable speeches. Noonan shows us the world behind the words, and her sharp, vivid portraits of President Reagan and a host of Washington’s movers and shakers are rendered in inimitable, witty prose. Her priceless account of what it was like to be a speechwriter among bureaucrats, and a woman in the last bastion of male power, makes this a Washington memoir that breaks the mold—as spirited, sensitive, and thoughtful as Peggy Noonan herself.
Author: Hourly History
Publisher: Hourly History
ISBN: 1976449936
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th president of the United States. That same day, the Americans who had been held hostage in Iran were released. For many Americans, the juxtaposition of those events was no coincidence. Ronald Reagan was the president they elected to restore their country’s sagging influence in the world and disappointing image at home. He was a president who believed in a United States that was truly, as he said in his farewell address, “a shining city.” He believed in the myth of American greatness, and for a nation that was still numb from Watergate, immersed in economic stagnation, and humiliated by international events, he made it believable. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Small Town Boy ✓ Reagan’s Hollywood Career ✓ The Governor’s Race ✓ The Assassination Attempt ✓ Reagan and the Evil Empire ✓ The Alzheimer’s Diagnosis And much more! Ronald Reagan would remain the man who beat the Russians and ended the Cold War, changing the composition of the globe with his conservative politics and his passionate idealism. Even through Reagan’s political trials, the Iran-Contra hearings, the mixed results of his economic policies known as Reaganomics, and the military build-up that swelled the national debt, the nation saw him as the man who restored the country to its rightful place as a leader among nations.
Author: Dinesh D'Souza
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684848236
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
Explores Reagan's political career, from his role in the California tax revolt to the economic success the United States experienced during his term in office.
Author: Nancy Reagan
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307766020
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 433
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Book Description
The former First Lady discusses her life, the Reagan administration, her shaky relationship with her children and key White House personnel, her husband’s involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, and her bout with cancer. “During our White House years I said almost nothing about how I really felt regarding the controversies that swirled around me. . . . But now those years are over, and it’s my turn to describe what happened. . . .” About Ronald Reagan: “Although Ronnie loves people, he often seems remote, and he doesn’t let anybody get too close. There’s a wall around him. He lets me come closer than anyone else, but there are times when even I feel that barrier.” About being a mother: “What I wanted most in all the world was to be a good wife and mother. As things turned out, I guess I’ve been more successful at the first than at the second.” About her influence: “I make no apologies for telling Ronnie what I thought. Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you have no right to express your opinions. For eight years I was sleeping with the president, and if that doesn’t give you special access, I don’t know what does.” About astrology: “What it boils down to is that each person has his or her own ways of coping with trauma and grief, with the pain of life, and astrology was one of mine. Don’t criticize me, I wanted to say, until you have stood in my place. This helped me. Nobody was hurt by it—except, possibly, me.” About Don Regan: “His very first day on the job, Don said that he saw himself as the ‘chief operating officer’ of the country. But he was hired to be chief of staff. . . . Although I believed for a long time that Donald Regan was in the wrong job, my ‘power’ in getting him to leave has been greatly exaggerated. Believe me, if I really were the dragon lady that he described in his book, he would have been out the door many months earlier.”
Author: Ronald Reagan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451642687
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 987
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Book Description
Ronald Reagan’s autobiography is a work of major historical importance. Here, in his own words, is the story of his life—public and private—told in a book both frank and compellingly readable. Few presidents have accomplished more, or been so effective in changing the direction of government in ways that are both fundamental and lasting, than Ronald Reagan. Certainly no president has more dramatically raised the American spirit, or done so much to restore national strength and self-confidence. Here, then, is a truly American success story—a great and inspiring one. From modest beginnings as the son of a shoe salesman in Tampico, Illinois, Ronald Reagan achieved first a distinguished career in Hollywood and then, as governor of California and as president of the most powerful nation in the world, a career of public service unique in our history. Ronald Reagan’s account of that rise is told here with all the uncompromising candor, modesty, and wit that made him perhaps the most able communicator ever to occupy the White House, and also with the sense of drama of a gifted natural storyteller. He tells us, with warmth and pride, of his early years and of the elements that made him, in later life, a leader of such stubborn integrity, courage, and clear-minded optimism. Reading the account of this childhood, we understand how his parents, struggling to make ends meet despite family problems and the rigors of the Depression, shaped his belief in the virtues of American life—the need to help others, the desire to get ahead and to get things done, the deep trust in the basic goodness, values, and sense of justice of the American people—virtues that few presidents have expressed more eloquently than Ronald Reagan. With absolute authority and a keen eye for the details and the anecdotes that humanize history, Ronald Reagan takes the reader behind the scenes of his extraordinary career, from his first political experiences as president of the Screen Actors Guild (including his first meeting with a beautiful young actress who was later to become Nancy Reagan) to such high points of his presidency as the November 1985 Geneva meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, during which Reagan invited the Soviet leader outside for a breath of fresh air and then took him off for a walk and a man-to-man chat, without aides, that set the course for arms reduction and charted the end of the Cold War. Here he reveals what went on behind his decision to enter politics and run for the governorship of California, the speech nominating Barry Goldwater that first made Reagan a national political figure, his race for the presidency, his relations with the members of his own cabinet, and his frustrations with Congress. He gives us the details of the great themes and dramatic crises of his eight years in office, from Lebanon to Grenada, from the struggle to achieve arms control to tax reform, from Iran-Contra to the visits abroad that did so much to reestablish the United States in the eyes of the world as a friendly and peaceful power. His narrative is full of insights, from the unseen dangers of Gorbachev’s first visit to the United States to Reagan’s own personal correspondence with major foreign leaders, as well as his innermost feelings about life in the White House, the assassination attempt, his family—and the enduring love between himself and Mrs. Reagan. An American Life is a warm, richly detailed, and deeply human book, a brilliant self-portrait, a significant work of history.
Author: Dick Wirthlin
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 0470255390
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
The outpouring of grief and heartfelt tributes following Ronald Reagan’s death demonstrated the love and admiration people still have for our nation’s 40th president. Now, in this affectionate memoir, Reagan’s chief political strategist and friend for 36 years offers a fascinating close-up portrait of the Great Communicator. Taking us inside the 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns and beyond, Dick Wirthlin shares illuminating anecdotes, off-the-record remarks, and private moments that reveal the true Ronald Reagan. Through it all, Wirthlin points out the unique qualities and talents that made Reagan such a strong leader-and such a great communicator. For anyone who has fond memories of the late president, this admiring reminiscence brilliantly conjures up the strong values, gregarious charm, and all-American optimism that made Ronald Reagan great.
