Awards

• Long-listed for National Book Critics Circle Award 2024
• Long-listed for Plutarch Award 2025

Overview

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.

Full Product Details

9780871409447

Table of Contents

Reviews

"An unabashed revisionist history of the 40th president of the U.S....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's account of the life and times of Reagan is, as promised, no hagiography...A prodigiously researched, satisfying presidential bio.-- ""Kirkus Reviews"" Using newly released documents and the perspective of decades, Boot portrays Reagan as a principled conservative, but also a pragmatist who thoughtfully compromised to attain achievable results...Boot's clear-headed biography brims with insightful anecdotes and clears away myth to give a more solid portrait of a remarkable politician.--Booklist, starred review"

""[I]mpeccably researched and thoroughly compelling… thanks to Boot’s enormously readable and scrupulously honest book, we know more than ever before about this complicated, frustrating and yet oddly magnetic man."" -- Dominic Sandbrook - The Sunday Times ""This biography is a doggedly researched, deeply readable character study, set in a bygone era of politics. "" -- The Economist ""[A] generous yet sharply perceptive biography"" -- Peter Conrad - The Observer ""[A] readable and insightful biography"" -- Philip Johnston - The Telegraph ""This is a timely and fascinating book, just what we need to understand, and perhaps transcend, our current age of political paralysis and polarization. Understanding Reagan is key to understanding our politics today."" -- Walter Isaacson, author of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs ""This comprehensive biography—relying on a decade of research, unearthed records, and revealing interviews—separates man from myth, offering a compelling and clear-eyed portrait of this consequential president and the country he shaped."" -- Karen Tumulty, author of The Triumph of Nancy Reagan ""a new and masterly biography of Ronald Reagan"" -- William Hague - The Times ""Intelligent, elegant and engrossing"" -- Andrew Preston - Literary Review ""[Reagan’s] remoteness has frustrated previous biographers. But Mr Boot responds with doggedness, evoking Reagan’s early life in small-town Illinois, college years and early forays into politics. Mr Boot is a gifted enough writer to prevent this accretion of detail from becoming a slog, and Reagan’s apparent lack of an inner life becomes a benefit: it keeps the focus on Reagan’s actions, which matter far more than a politician’s thoughts or feelings."" -- The Economist ""[Reagan] aims to be the definitive biography, and it succeeds. It’s a thoughtful, absorbing account."" -- Daniel Immerwahr - The New Yorker ""A judicious biography. "" -- Jacob Heilbrunn - The New York Times ""[A] magisterial new biography… The first important Reagan biography of the post-Reagan era"" -- Geoffrey Kabaservice - The Washington Post ""Reagan is the best, most balanced biography to date of the man and his era... [A] fine book"" -- Fredrik Logevall - The Times Literary Supplement ""[A] remarkable book… One of the particular reasons the book is so welcome is it really is the first comprehensive and fair biography of Reagan we’ve had. There have been hagiographies in the past, and hatchet jobs, but Max Boot looks with a clear eye at both the triumphs and the failures."" -- Mark Smith - The Herald

""[I]mpeccably researched and thoroughly compelling… thanks to Boot’s enormously readable and scrupulously honest book, we know more than ever before about this complicated, frustrating and yet oddly magnetic man."" -- Dominic Sandbrook - The Sunday Times ""Intelligent, elegant and engrossing"" -- Andrew Preston - Literary Review ""[Reagan’s] remoteness has frustrated previous biographers. But Mr Boot responds with doggedness, evoking Reagan’s early life in small-town Illinois, college years and early forays into politics. Mr Boot is a gifted enough writer to prevent this accretion of detail from becoming a slog, and Reagan’s apparent lack of an inner life becomes a benefit: it keeps the focus on Reagan’s actions, which matter far more than a politician’s thoughts or feelings."" -- The Economist ""[A] generous yet sharply perceptive biography"" -- Peter Conrad - The Observer ""[Reagan] aims to be the definitive biography, and it succeeds. It’s a thoughtful, absorbing account."" -- Daniel Immerwahr - The New Yorker ""A judicious biography. "" -- Jacob Heilbrunn - The New York Times ""[A] magisterial new biography… The first important Reagan biography of the post-Reagan era"" -- Geoffrey Kabaservice - The Washington Post ""This is a timely and fascinating book, just what we need to understand, and perhaps transcend, our current age of political paralysis and polarization. Understanding Reagan is key to understanding our politics today."" -- Walter Isaacson, author of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs ""This comprehensive biography—relying on a decade of research, unearthed records, and revealing interviews—separates man from myth, offering a compelling and clear-eyed portrait of this consequential president and the country he shaped."" -- Karen Tumulty, author of The Triumph of Nancy Reagan

"Max Boot's Reagan biography is superb--in my judgment, definitive. He has achieved what Edmund Morris could not--a coherent and compelling portrait of an enigmatic and elusive figure, one which is also notably fair-minded.--Richard North Patterson, political commentator This comprehensive biography--relying on a decade of research, unearthed records, and revealing interviews--separates man from myth, offering a compelling and clear-eyed portrait of this consequential president and the country he shaped.--Karen Tumulty, author of The Triumph of Nancy Reagan This is a timely and fascinating book, just what we need to understand, and perhaps transcend, our current age of political paralysis and polarization. Understanding Reagan is key to understanding our politics today.--Walter Isaacson, author of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs Well researched and reported accurately. Ronald Reagan was a complicated man, yet a caring one. Max Boot beautifully catches the essence of who he was.--Stuart K. Spencer, Ronald Reagan's political consultant, 1966-1984 An unabashed revisionist history of the 40th president of the U.S....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's account of the life and times of Reagan is, as promised, no hagiography...A prodigiously researched, satisfying presidential bio.-- ""Kirkus Reviews"" Using newly released documents and the perspective of decades, Boot portrays Reagan as a principled conservative, but also a pragmatist who thoughtfully compromised to attain achievable results...Boot's clear-headed biography brims with insightful anecdotes and clears away myth to give a more solid portrait of a remarkable politician.--Booklist, starred review This is the definitive Reagan biography that so many of us have been waiting for. Max Boot clears away the myths and presents the real Ronald Reagan, with all of his strengths and also his shortcomings. If you like biographies, you'll love Reagan: His Life and Legend.--General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former CIA director"

Author Information

Max Boot, historian and foreign-policy analyst, is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a columnist for the Washington Post. His New York Times bestseller The Road Not Taken was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

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