Author: Benjamin Griffin
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682477797
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
Reagan’s War Stories examines the relationship between Ronald Reagan, the public and popular culture. From an overview of Reagan’s youth and the pulp fiction he consumed, we get a sense of the future president’s good/evil outlook. Carrying that over into Reagan’s reading and choices as president, Griffin situates narrative at the center of Reagan’s political formation and leadership providing a compelling account of both Reagan’s life, his presidency, and a lens into non-traditional strategy formulation. Author Ben Griffin tells three stories about an American president who ushered in the end of the Cold War. A survey of Reagan’s youth and the fiction he consumed and created as an announcer and actor, reveals how the future president’s worldview developed. A look at the rise of fiction and popular culture rife with pro-Americanism in the 1980s details a uniquely symbiotic relationship between the chief executive and popular culture in framing the Cold War as a struggle with an “Evil Empire” in the Soviet Union. Finally, Griffin outlines how presidential personality and reading preferences shaped President Reagan’s pursuit of the “Star Wars” initiative and belief in the transformative combination of freedom and technology. Griffin demonstrates that novels by Tom Clancy, Louis L’Amour, and science fiction influenced Reagan’s view of 1980s geopolitics. His identification with fiction led Ronald Reagan to view European Cold War issues with more empathy but harmed the president's policymaking when the narrowness of his reading led him to apply a white-hat/black-hat framework that did not match the reality of conflict in Latin America. Reagan treated fictional portrayals seriously, believing they shaped public views and offered valid ways to think through geo-political issues. Seeking to shape the reading habits of the public, his administration sought to highlight authors who shared his worldview like Tom Clancy, Louis L’Amour, and Allen Drury over other popular writers like Robert Ludlum and John Le Carre who portrayed the Cold War in less stark moral terms. The administration’s favored popular authors in turn intentionally incorporated Reagan-era policies into their work to advocate for them through fiction, thus reaching a broader audience than via official government releases and speeches. Showing how Reagan used narrative as both a consumer and a communicator, Griffin notes that Reagan identified with certain stories and they shaped him as a political leader and later and influenced his approach to complex issues. When handled deftly, incorporating fiction created a common language across the administration and provided a way to convey messages to the masses in a memorable fashion.
Author: Peter Schweizer
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1400075564
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 374
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Book Description
Reagan’s War is the story of Ronald Reagan’s personal and political journey as an anti-communist, from his early days as an actor to his years in the White House. Challenging popular misconceptions of Reagan as an empty suit who played only a passive role in the demise of the Soviet Union, Peter Schweizer details Reagan’s decades-long battle against communism. Bringing to light previously secret information obtained from archives in the United States, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Russia—including Reagan’s KGB file—Schweizer offers a compelling case that Reagan personally mapped out and directed his war against communism, often disagreeing with experts and advisers. An essential book for understanding the Cold War, Reagan’s War should be read by open-minded readers across the political spectrum.
Author: Peggy Grande
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 031639646X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 302
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Book Description
"Peggy Grande's memoir is the book to read on Ronald Reagan's post-presidential years . . . Among the most unique and touching [books] ever done on the man . . . Wonderful." -- The AmericanSpectator In The President Will See You Now, devoted Reagan insider Peggy Grande shares behind-the-scenes stories, intimate moments, and insights into one of America's most beloved presidents. Grande, who started in the Office of Ronald Reagan as a college student and earned her way into a coveted role as the president's Executive Assistant, offers an unparalleled perspective on the post-presidency of a political icon. Grande's stories and never-before-seen photos show a unique, private side to a public figure and leader who reshaped conservatism, ushered in an era of prosperity, and helped spur the end of the Cold War. Grande reveals what day-to-day life was like in Reagan's California office, including the former president's relationship with the First Lady and his interactions with friends, world leaders, and everyday Americans. Grande recalls how Reagan kept a vigorous schedule for years after he left the White House, his robust engagement with others, and ongoing political advocacy. Despite his eventual Alzheimer's diagnosis, Grande shows how Ronald Reagan remained true to core beliefs, his gentlemanly kindness, and his undying hope for his country. Today the Reagan legacy looms over American politics more than ever. Grande reminds readers why: When Ronald Reagan was president, we not only loved ourselves but also loved America, and the American values he represented: faith, optimism, and patriotism.
Author: Kiron K. Skinner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416584501
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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Book Description
Ronald Reagan loved to tell stories. Sometimes he used them to break the ice, or to prove a point, but very often he used them to inspire, to uplift, and to remind his listeners of what matters most in life. Recently, in the archives of the Reagan Library, researcher Kiron Skinner unearthed a trove of handwritten Reagan manuscripts from the late 1970s, over 650 in all, which included some priceless examples of Reagan's storytelling abilities. Stories in His Own Hand reproduces the best of these deeply personal anecdotes. Skinner, along with longtime Reagan aides and scholars Annelise and Martin Anderson, has carefully documented the extent of Reagan's manuscripts, which originated as radio transcripts. Earlier, in the bestselling Reagan, In His Own Hand, the editors compiled a broad range of Reagan's policy-oriented essays from this collection, showing an astonishing breadth of vision concerning nearly every issue he would face as president. Here they reveal a different Ronald Reagan: not the political but the personal man, not the executive but the teacher. Here is Reagan on men and women, life and death, family and friends. Here is a man who loved to tell a story to make us all stop, listen, and think about what it means to be human.
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: Garry Wills
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504045416
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 554
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Book Description
New York Times Bestseller: A “remarkable and evenhanded study of Ronald Reagan” from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg (The New York Times). Updated with a new preface by the author, this captivating biography of America’s fortieth president recounts Ronald Reagan’s life—from his poverty-stricken Illinois childhood to his acting career to his California governorship to his role as commander in chief—and examines the powerful myths surrounding him, many of which he created himself. Praised by some for his sunny optimism and old-fashioned rugged individualism, derided by others for being a politician out of touch with reality, Reagan was both a popular and polarizing figure in the 1980s United States, and continues to fascinate us as a symbol. In Reagan’s America, Garry Wills reveals the realities behind Reagan’s own descriptions of his idyllic boyhood, as well as the story behind his leadership of the Screen Actors Guild, the role religion played in his thinking, and the facts of his military service. With a wide-ranging and balanced assessment of both the personal and political life of this outsize American icon, the author of such acclaimed works as What Jesus Meant and The Kennedy Imprisonment “elegantly dissects the first U.S. President to come out of Hollywood’s dream factory [in] a fascinating biography whose impact is enhanced by techniques of psychological profile and social history” (Los Angeles Times).
Author: Bill O'Reilly
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1627792414
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
The most-talked-about political commentator in America is back with more about what he has to say to his fellow Americans. Print run 1,200,000.
Author: Ronald Reagan
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061751944
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 788
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Book Description
The edited and abridged diaries of the 40th U.S. president, chronicling the day-to-day of his two terms in office and revealing his true character. #1 New York Times Bestseller During his two terms as the fortieth president of the United States, Ronald Reagan kept a daily diary in which he recorded, by hand, his innermost thoughts and observations on the extraordinary, the historic, and the routine day—to-day occruences of his presidency. Brought together in one volume and edited by historian Douglas Brinkley, The Reagan Diaries provides a striking insight into one of this nation’s most important presidencies and shed new light on the character of this American leader. Praise for The Reagan Diaries “Historians will treasure Doug Brinkley’s superbly edited version of President Reagan’s diaries for generations to come. In one remarkable entry after another, the president’s compelling voice, strength of character, and sunny personality come vividly to life.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin “These are amusing and enlightening diaries. . . . I quite simply couldn’t put them down.” —Christopher Hitchens, The Times (London)
Author: Dan E. Moldea
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504043502
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
A “smoldering indictment” of the corrupt influences that rescued Ronald Reagan's career, made him millions, and shaped his presidency (Library Journal). Founded in 1924, the Music Corporation of America got its start booking acts into speakeasies run by such notorious Chicago mobsters as Al Capone. How then, in only a few decades, did MCA become the driving force behind music publishing, radio, recording artists, Hollywood, and the burgeoning television industry? Enter Ronald Reagan. By the late 1950s, Reagan was a passé movie actor. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, he was also MCA’s key client. With Reagan’s help, MCA would become the most powerful entertainment conglomerate in the world. And with MCA’s help, Reagan would secure a fortune (resulting in a federal grand jury hearing), be marketed to the public as a viable politician, and ascend to the presidency of the United States. But according to reporter Dan E. Moldea, there had always been another catalyst behind MCA: Ties to organized crime that reached back to the company’s inception—and through Reagan’s Teamster-backed candidacy—had never been severed. From the author of The Hoffa Wars, this is an epic and serpentine investigation into the insidious links among Hollywood, the Mob, and politics. Based on research of six thousand pages of previously classified documents, including the entirety of Reagan’s grand jury testimony, Moldea “has, through sheer tenacity, amassed an avalanche of ominous and unnerving facts. [Dark Victory is] a book about power, ego and the American way. Moldea has shown us what we don’t want to see” (Los Angeles Times).
Author: Oliver North
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1596986964
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
The mainstream media are trying to discredit our victory in Iraq by saying there was no reason to take out Saddam. But Oliver North knows better. He was there. Embedded with Marine and Army units for FOX News Channel during Operation Iraqi Freedom, North (himself a decorated combat veteran) vividly tells the story his camera gave us glimpses of during the campaign to liberate Iraq. This updated edition features a new chapter detailing the events after the end of major hostilities—including the capture of Saddam Hussein—and brand-new action photos straight from the front line.
