In The Age of Reagan, Sean Wilentz offers a fresh, brilliant chronicle of America's political history since the fall of Nixon. The past thirty-five years have marked an era of conservatism. Although briefly interrupted in the late 1970s and temporarily reversed in the 1990s, a powerful surge from the Right has dominated American politics and government. Wilentz accounts for how an extreme conservative movement once deemed marginal managed to seize power and hold it, and the momentous consequences that followed. Ronald Reagan has been the single most important political figure of this age. Without Reagan, the conservative movement would never have been as successful as it was. In his political persona, as well as his policies, Reagan embodied a new fusion of deeply right-leaning politics with some of the rhetoric and even the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and of John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. In American political history, there have been a few figures who, for better or worse, have placed their political stamp indelibly on their times. They include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt—and Ronald Reagan. A conservative hero in a conservative age, Reagan is either so admired by a minority of historians or so disliked by the others that it has been difficult to evaluate his administration with detachment. The Age of Reagan raises profound questions and opens passionate debate about our nation's recent past.
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"A very informative book. I was not able to finish it because it was due back at the library. It is a balanced presentation of Reagan's impact on the country, and as such a bit depressing. We should all know how this happened so we can help to stop it from continuing. " — John (5 out of 5 stars)
"A very informative book. I was not able to finish it because it was due back at the library. It is a balanced presentation of Reagan's impact on the country, and as such a bit depressing. We should all know how this happened so we can help to stop it from continuing. "
Eloquent and compelling.... [A] superb account.
“Wilentz skillfully disentangles the various threads of Reaganism, and traces the long shift in American politics that led to its ascendancy.”
“Eloquent and compelling…. [A] superb account.”
“Wilentz’s critique compels readers, whatever their political persuasion, to come to grips with the Gipper.”
" Liberal biased crap "
" A very good account of the greatest president in modern time. He was ahumble man who only had the interest in our country at heart. "
" Good book for recent history if a bit skewed. The author uses the term ultraconservative a bit too much (is the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal ultraconservative?) and does not make the connection between Clarence Thomas's hearing and the Clinton impeachment (I teach that it was clear payback). But it was good primer on this stuff. I need to read some critical reviews. "
" Very good. Very comprehensive, though there are some missteps. "
" A good history of the time period. I became an adult during this time period and it seems that working to move ahead in business seemed to overshadow events. Now that I'm in education, I don't seem to have as many blanks. This is a good book to refresh my memory. "
" Honestly, I mostly loved this book for two reasons: Wilentz and learning about the politics and events I lived through but was too young to understand. "
" A very informative book. I was not able to finish it because it was due back at the library. It is a balanced presentation of Reagan's impact on the country, and as such a bit depressing. We should all know how this happened so we can help to stop it from continuing. "
" A good political history of the the last 35 years "
" I wasn't expecting such a liberal view of the Reagan years. I was hoping for something a little more balanced? "
" A really smart and interesting interpretation of what Reaganism has meant for more than 30 years. "
" terrific chronicle of the rise of conservatism and the "voodoo economics" of the Reagan age and it's successors..... "
" Disappointing, highly skewed history. Everything Wilentz writes on Reagan and the judiciary is inane and flat wrong. "
" Although the book doesn't really contain any really groundbreaking new facts or interpretations, I would recommend it to people who didn't follow politics closely or weren't alive during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. "
" a well-written and lucid history of the last 20 years. its greatest strength is a the rendering of reagan's lasting impact while neither glorifying nor demonizing. "
" The great liberal discusses the origins and discontents of the regnant political movement of the last 30 years. "
" great read for situating the last 35 years in proper long term context "
Sean Wilentz is a professor of American history at Princeton University. He is the author of The Age of Reagan and The Rise of American Democracy, which received the coveted Bancroft Prize. The historian-in-residence for Bob Dylan’s official Website, he has also received a Deems Taylor Award for musical commentary and a Grammy nomination for his liner notes to Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan, Live 1964: The Concert at Philharmonic Hall.
Dick Hill, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, is one of the most awarded narrators in the business, having earned several Audie Awards and thirty-four AudioFile Earphones Awards. In addition to narrating, he has both acted in and written for the theater.
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