Reagan His life and legend

Max Boot, 1968-

Book - 2024

"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."--

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Subjects
Genres
Biographies
Published
New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation, an imprint of W. W. Norton & Company [2024]
Language
English
Main Author
Max Boot, 1968- (-)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xxxviii, 836 pages, 24 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 737-801) and index.
ISBN
9780871409447
  • Prologue: Mourning in America
  • Introduction: The Pragmatist
  • Act I. Small-Town Boy
  • 1. Main Street
  • 2. "The Sunny Side's the Only Side"
  • 3. "A Good, Clean Town"
  • 4. The Lifeguard
  • 5. 'Neath the Elms
  • 6. The New Dealer
  • 7. Radio Days
  • Act II. Actor
  • 8. Hayseed in Hollywood
  • 9. The White Knight
  • 10. The A List
  • 11. Fort Wacky
  • 12. The Strike
  • 13. The Blacklist
  • 14. The Divorce
  • 15. The Winning Team
  • 16. "Progress Is Our Most Important Product"
  • 17. Family Values
  • Act III. "Citizen Politician"
  • 18. The Right Man
  • 19. The Speech
  • 20. The Friends of Ronald Reagan
  • 21. The Backlash Candidate
  • 22. The Amateur
  • 23. The Moderate
  • 24. The "Homosexual Ring"
  • 25. The Forgotten Campaign
  • 26. Battles in Berkeley
  • 27. A Quieter Term
  • 28. The Primary Gambit
  • 29. "I Shall Rise and Fight Again"
  • 30. The Santa Claus Campaign
  • 31. Sears Agonistes
  • 32. What It Took
  • Act IV. MR. President
  • 33. Assembling an Administration
  • 34. In the white House
  • 35. Finest Hour
  • 36. "The Whip Hand"
  • 37. "Vacation!"
  • 38. The Cold War Heats Up
  • 39. The Reagan Doctrine
  • 40. The Fairness Issue
  • 41. The Ash Heap of History
  • 42. Allies-and Aides-at War
  • 43. The Year of Living Dangerously
  • 44. The Thrill of Victory… and the Agony of Defeat
  • 45. The Haves and Have-Nots
  • 46. "Don't Screw Up": The 1984 Campaign
  • 47. Hail to the Chief (of Staff)
  • 48. "We Can Do Business Together"
  • 49. Despotism and Terrorism
  • 50. The Surprise Summit
  • 51. "A Dark and Hurtful Time"
  • 52. Culture Wars
  • 53. Tear Down This Wall
  • Act V. Ex-President
  • 54. Fadeout
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

Compared to the partisan brawling of today's national and local American politics, Ronald Reagan's presidency looks idyllic. Using newly released documents and the perspective of decades, Boot (The Road Not Taken, 2019) portrays Reagan as a principled conservative, but also a pragmatist who thoughtfully compromised to attain achievable results. Boot surveys Reagan's Illinois upbringing, noting that his ambition was evident from a young age--a sports enthusiast as well as a fan of dramatic acting, Reagan entered radio broadcasting before decamping to southern California to pursue an acting career. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, he fought supposed communists in the union; celebrated by conservatives as anti-tax, he nevertheless increased government debt both as California governor and U.S. president. He also witnessed the collapse of the U.S.' old nemesis, the Soviet Union. Reagan often reduced controversies into battles between good and evil. His ability to project an attractive telegenic persona marshalled public support and acclaim. He defended the rights of minorities in the film industry and in military service, but in campaigns he signaled to segregationists that they were welcome in his party. Boot's clear-headed biography brims with insightful anecdotes and clears away myth to give a more solid portrait of a remarkable politician.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Ronald Reagan embodied an ideologically unmoored but effective blend of hard-line conservatism and pragmatism, according to this sprawling biography. Washington Post columnist Boot (The Road Not Taken) traces Reagan's journey from movie star and New Deal liberal to staunch right-winger who extolled capitalism, anathematized big government, and clothed ugly prejudices--he privately called Africans "monkeys"--in a sunny, charismatic persona. But his extremism, Boot notes, coexisted with practical flexibility; for example, when his signature tax cuts ballooned government budget deficits, he backtracked and accepted new taxes, and he pursued negotiations with the Soviet Union even as he was calling it "an evil empire." Boot strongly criticizes Reagan's moral failings, including his habitual resort to racist dog whistles, the inequity of his economic policies, and his support for murderous right-wing dictatorships in Latin America. But he's also alive to Reagan's political strengths, which included cutting deals (he oversaw groundbreaking nuclear arms reduction treaties with the Soviets) and communicating an appealing, if simplistic, political vision. Boot's effort to paint Reagan as basically a moderate at heart--or at least in practice, by way of balancing his excesses against his moments of judiciousness--leaves the man himself somewhat inscrutable, casting him instead as an avatar of American democracy's complicated mix of earnest dogma and muddled consensus. It makes for an unusually middle-of-the-road and not very revealing portrait. (Sept.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The historian and foreign-policy analyst presents an unabashed revisionist history of the 40th president of the U.S. Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Road Not Taken and Invisible Armies, sets out to present Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) in full: the enigmatic man of contradictions who had a singular talent for connecting with millions of constituents while being a conflict-avoiding introvert little known to his own family as well as associates who famously eluded and "flummoxed" official biographer Edmund Morris, whose Dutch was "an experimental, quasi-fictional book that was widely criticized." The amount of research Boot conducted is immense, and his portrait of Reagan is enhanced not only by the passage of time since Reagan's administrations, but by the author's 100+ forthright interviews and the availability of more archival materials. Boot brings to light the familial, social, and religious influences that shaped Reagan's Midwestern childhood; the skills he honed as a sportscaster and actor, which reinforced the all-American persona that he would display on the world stage; and his intriguing work as an FBI informant during the Hollywood blacklist era. The author also produces a no-holds-barred account of Reagan's terms as California governor and U.S. president. Boot's account of the life and times of Reagan is, as promised, no hagiography. Occasionally, however, the author overreaches in his attempts to demonstrate his independence with odd quips and obvious points that diminish the quality of the text. Yet Boot goes further than any other biography--with the exception of H.W. Brands' 2015 portrait--in completing the story of an essentially unknowable individual who was "hiding in plain sight" yet whose ideological metamorphosis was fundamental to understanding the political and social transformations of the U.S. in the second half of the 20th century. A prodigiously researched, satisfying presidential bio. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.