Reagan

NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2024INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWashington Post 50 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024Best Books of 2024: The New Yorker, The Economist, Chicago Public Library, The Auburn Citizen"e;This elegant biography of the 40th president stands out for its deep authority and nimble style.... A landmark work."e; New York Times, "e;10 Best Books of 2024"e;"e;Reagan: His Life and Legend aims to be the definitive biography, and it succeeds."e; New Yorker"e;Magisterial.... Important.... Vivid... Splendid."e; Washington PostSon of the Midwest, movie star, and mesmerizing politicianAmericas 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 presidents 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 Reagans 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 Reagans 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.Reagans 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 Americas spirits after the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. But Boot also shows how Reagan was armored in obliviousness. He traces Reagans 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 Wars end, the Iran-Contra affair, as well as a nuanced portrait of Reagans family, this definitive biography is as compelling a presidential biography as any in recent decades.