FRESH LOOK
There's a pretty well-balanced review of not one but four books "reconstructing Ronald Reagan"
in the New York Review of Books, penned by Russell Baker (image source).
Together, these four books come to over 2000 pages on looking at the Reagan legacy with the benefit of hindsight and history.
Here are a couple of excerpts that made me sit up notice, from the book Mr. Baker spends the most time with, Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom and the Making of History by John Patrick Diggins:
"Professor Diggins has bold ideas, juicy opinions, and the cheek to state them forcefully. His book is barely underway before he declares that Reagan "may be, after Lincoln, one of the two or three truly great presidents in American history."...
"...All this will doubtless please Reagan's more passionate admirers, but some of Diggins's other formulations may not sit so well.
Reaganites will not be amused to find Diggins describing their man as a "liberal romantic."
It's a very readable review, regardless of where one comes out on the Reagan legacy. In my mind, Ronald Reagan was one of the true centrist presidents of our time, regardless of the labels adopted by his presidency for tactical and strategic reasons over time.
The review also captures how difficult it's been for historians and biographers to truly capture the "True Reagan":
"There was obviously something about this seemingly unremarkable man that made him extraordinary, but no one could define it. He was a riddle impervious to all who tried to catch him in an introspective moment.
Even his wife Nancy was puzzled. "You can get just so far to Ronnie, and then something happens," she told his biographer Lou Cannon. And Nancy, Cannon notes, "may have been the only person who really knew him at all."
Pretty cool stuff. I definitely gained a new perspective on our 40th President. Definitely worth some cycles on a Sunday morning.
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