Reagan
Subtitle: an American journey
By: Bob Spitz
Publisher: Penguin Press
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 863
ISBN-13: 9781594205316
Subjects: Governors; Presidents; Biography; Motion picture actors and actresses
Description: "More than five years in the making, based on hundreds of interviews and access to previously unavailable documents, and infused with irresistible storytelling charm, Bob Spitz's REAGAN stands fair to be the first truly post-partisan biography of our 40th President, and thus a balm for our own bitterly divided times. It is the quintessential American triumph, brought to life with cinematic vividness: a young man is born into poverty and raised in a series of flyspeck towns in the Midwest by a pious mother and a reckless, alcoholic, largely absent father. Severely near-sighted, the boy lives in his own world, a world of the popular books of the day, and finds his first brush with popularity, even fame, as a young lifeguard. Thanks to his first great love, he imagines a way out, and makes the extraordinary leap to go to college, a modest school by national standards, but an audacious presumption in the context of his family's station. From there, the path is only very dimly lit, but it leads him, thanks to his great charm and greater luck, to a solid career as a radio sportscaster, and then, astonishingly, fatefully, to Hollywood. And the rest, as they say, is history. Bob Spitz's REAGAN is an absorbing, richly detailed, even revelatory chronicle of the full arc of Ronald Reagan's epic life - giving full weight to the Hollywood years, his transition to politics and rocky but ultimately successful run as California governor, and ultimately, of course, his iconic presidency, filled with storm and stress but climaxing with his peace talks with the Soviet Union that would serve as his greatest legacy. It is filled with fresh assessments and shrewd judgments, and doesn't flinch from a full reckoning with the man's strengths and limitations"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 766-843) and index.
Table of contents: title: Part 1: DUTCH; title: An Ideal Place; title: A Little Bit of a Dutchman; title: The Happiest Times of My Life; title: Ready to Shine; title: Everyone's Hero; title: Living the Gospel; title: The Disappearance of Margaret; title: A People-Pleaser; title: Another Robert Taylor; title: Part 2: RONNIE; title: Letting Dutch Go; title: Button Nose; title: Where's . . . Where's the Rest of Me?; title: In the Army Now; title: A Dangerous Man; title: Trouble in Paradise; title: The Blue Period; title: Nancy (With the Laughing Face); title: Ronnie's Finest Hour; title: Moving from Left to Right; title: An Apprenticeship for Public Life; title: The Friends of Ronald Reagan; title: The Citizen Politician; title: Part 3: GOVERNOR; title: Prairie Fire; title: The Non-Candidate; title: The Conservation Governor; title: A Horse of a Different Color; title: Momentum; title: The Front-Runner; title: Big Mo; title: A Referendum on Unhappiness; title: Part 4: MR. PRESIDENT; title: The O and W; title: Survival of the Fittest; title: Cracks in the Foundation; title: War and Peace; title: Urgent Fury; title: Teflon Man; title: Let Reagan Be Reagan; title: Into the Abyss; title: A Fresh Start; title: So Far Down the Road; title: Back on the Rollercoaster; title: Snakebit; title: Reclaiming the Spotlight; title: The Long Goodbye; title: An Ordinary Citizen; title: The Sunset.