Product Description

Following his departure from office, says John Patrick Diggins in this re-evaluation of the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan was marginalised thanks to liberal biases that dominate the teaching of American history. Yet Reagan, like Lincoln (who was also attacked for decades after his death), deserves to be regarded as one of America's three or four greatest presidents. Reagan was more active a president and more sophisticated than he appeared at the time. His negotiations with Gorbachev and his opposition to foreign interventions demonstrate that he was not a rigid hawk. And, in his distrust of big government he was the most open-minded libertarian American president, combining a reverence for America's traditions with a faith in the opportunities of the future. This is a revealing portrait of great character that shows Reagan to be an exemplar of the truest conservative values.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88145 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 512 pages

About the Author
JOHN PATRICK DIGGINS is the author of The Proud Decades: 1941-1960 (ISBN 978 0 393 95656 6), as well as biographies of John Adams and Max Weber. He is a distinguished professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Customer Reviews

A Philosophical Review of Reagan
"Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom and the Making of History" is a philosophical study of Ronald Reagan and his place in history. It is not a true biography but employs biographical details to support its points.

Through much of this book I was unsure whether its purpose was to praise Reagan or to debunk his myth. Author John Patrick Diggins cites facts about Reagan to dispute many of the conventional wisdoms about him. He claims that Reagan was not as conservative or as hawkish as is widely believed. He delves into Reagan's days with General Electric, his confrontations with campus radicals in Sacramento, negotiations with Gorbachev, his flirtations with Nicaraguan Contras and Jonas Savimbi of Angola. He presents Reagan as an Emersonian idealist whose distrust of big government guided his political career. At times it is not clear whether Diggins is concluding that Reagan is a hero or a failure. Ultimately he finds Lincolnesque qualities in his subject.

This is not a first book for one searching for the Reagan lore. For biographies, look elsewhere. After you have absorbed those, look here for a deeper dip into the philosophical underpinnings of the Reagan Revolution.