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President Reagan
The Triumph Of Imagination
by Richard Reeves
The Presidential biographer chronicles Ronald Reagan's eight years in office.
Simon & Schuster, 592 pages
12/20/2005
$30.00
ISBN: 0743230221
Nonfiction
Biographies & Memoirs
History
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Publishers Weekly
Reeves is particularly strong at portraying Reagan's almost organically intuitive approach to management. [21 Nov 2005, p.39]
The Observer Terry Golway
An invaluable contribution to our understanding of the man and the times. [9 Jan 2006, p.11]
Washington Post Jon Meacham
Readers are in Reeves's debt for this entertaining, deeply reported and revealing portrait of a man destined to be in death what he was in life: a figure of enduring fascination.
Library Journal Michael O. Eshleman
Combining interviews, archival research, and a hearty dose of the press accounts of the day, Reeves's narrative is especially good at covering the assassination attempt and the Reykjavik summit with Soviet leader Gorbachev. [1 Dec 2005, p.142]
Booklist Gilbert Taylor
Meticulous and fair, Reeves sets the bar for the historian who would attempt a definitive history of the Reagan years. [15 Nov 2005, p.4]
The New York Times Book Review Adrian Wooldridge
In one area Reeves scores a bull's-eye: exposing the sheer strangeness of the Reagan years.
USA Today Deirdre Donahue
A cogent, evenhanded, in-depth examination of the Reagan presidency.
Boston Globe David Gergen
Just as Reagan had his many flaws, so does this book. It is long on detail, especially in describing small, messy wars in Central America, and short on reflection...Still, in a field of more than 900 books about Reagan, many of them shlock, this is one of the most serious and valuable.
Houston Chronicle John W. Sloan
Reeves is particularly good at conveying the roller-coaster character of the Reagan presidency, which saw great achievements and several failures.
Los Angeles Times Richard Rayner
Reeves takes us through these years, past the signpost events, with clumps of often stodgy detail and not much insight into Reagan's mental process. But then, Reagan was a self-isolator, not a self-explainer.
San Francisco Chronicle Michael Roth
There is much description and little analysis.
Christian Science Monitor Erik Spanberg
Little of the material Reeves offers is new. But revisiting the Reagan Revolution in the context of today's post-9/11 domestic and global politics is instructive - and at times downright disturbing.
Kirkus Reviews
Under Reagan, recently all but canonized, the economy suffered, big government grew bigger, the military got new toys but not better soldiers or leaders. And as for national pride...[15 Nov 2005, p.1224]
The Economist
Most of his material is second-hand and the accumulation of detail, especially contemporary newspaper accounts, is sometimes exhausting. But his main technique, of telescoping in on individual dramas of the presidency, does produce some memorable set pieces.
The Independent Cal McCrystal
The book is extremely rich in anecdote on the frailties of Reagan officials, the ideological struggle that was tipping America further to the right, neuroses of both East and West, and corporate, governmental and individual responses to humanity in crisis.
The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
An embarrassing hodgepodge of fact and fiction narrated by an imaginary alter ego... Most of Mr. Reeves's observations about Reagan are either poorly supported contrarian assertions or shop-worn clichés.
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