A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent – By Robert W. Merry
Journal: Presidential Studies Quarterly
Year: 2012

Presidential scholars and everyday U.S. citizens apparently cannot escape the ghost of Ronald Reagan.In The Reagan Rhetoric: History and Memory in 1980s America, Toby Glenn Bates justifies his study because "not a single scholar who focused exclusively on Reagan's rhetoric approached the subject as a historian" (p.5).The author contends that Reagan's consistency in his rhetoric about issues, such as states' rights, Vietnam, and the Iran-Contra affair, contributed to his ability to reframe public