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Books : The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008In association with Amazon.comby: Sean Wilentz  List Price: $27.95 Amazon.com's Price: $18.45 You Save: $9.50 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 973.927 EAN: 9780060744809 ISBN: 0060744804 Label: Harper Manufacturer: Harper Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 576 Publication Date: May 01, 2008 Publisher: Harper Release Date: May 06, 2008 Studio: Harper Sales Rank: 13602 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description:
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. In The Age of Reagan, Sean Wilentz accounts for how a 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 have never 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 a bit of the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. In American political history there have been a few leading 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 D. Roosevelt—and Ronald Reagan. A conservative hero in a conservative age, Reagan has been so admired by a minority of historians and so disliked by the others that it has been difficult to evaluate his administration with detachment. Drawing on numerous primary documents that have been neglected or only recently released to the public, as well as on emerging historical work, Wilentz offers invaluable revelations about conservatism's ascendancy and the era in which Reagan was the preeminent political figure. Vivid, authoritative, and illuminating from start to finish, The Age of Reagan raises profound questions and opens passionate debate about our nation's recent past. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Bilge...Predictable pseudo-history from an avowed Marxist. Just saw Wilentz on CSPAN. In that interview he actually praises Reagan, unbelievably. I guess he didn't write this book. By the way, the reviewer Ravitch needs to be liquidated. Rating: - Wilenz is the Nigel Tufnel of historians - clueless and self-delusional.A very funny book. My wife thought I was reading fiction (I was) because of the constant belly-laughing. I guess I never realized that all of Carter's failures were actually great successes and all of Reagan's successes were actually terrible failures. Amazing. Thank god for "intellectuals" telling us the facts (as interpreted by them). If you are looking for a good laugh rent Spinal Tap again. Otherwise avoid this diatribe at all costs. Rating:  - More campaign literature than historyUnfortunately this is a book which does a fine historian no credit. It is poorly written with many infelicitous lines but it has some value. Liberals and conservatives will both hate its nuanced appreciation of Reagan, a man of limited understanding but some firm beliefs which turned sometimes in a dangerous direction and finally in a beneficent one. The book recalls for many of us, both those who voted for Reagan and those appalled by his election, why he won two national races ... Read More Rating: - Don't bother...it's predictableIf you are looking for an objective history of the Reagan Administration, look elsewhere. This guy lists himself as a Pulitzer finalist...well, I hope hope he doesn't expect to win anytime soon. Politically, he's a teacher at Princeton -- enough said. The book is predictable, almost elementary. In the introduction, Wilentz brags that he didn't conduct any interviews because it would have taken too much time. The end result is as expected. Ronald Reagan is the bogeyman. The most ... Read More Rating: - Waste of Time and MoneySean Wilentz is an awoved Marxist with a long track record of writing tendentious leftist history -all hailed as magisterial by his fellow leftist academics. For anyone willing to do their own reading and be their own critic, the bias and political agenda in his work is plain to see. Take a few minutes, if you can, before buying this one to read the preface. The outrageously absurd comments on President Bush and the Republican Party generally tell you all you need to know about Wilentz's ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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