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The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 (American History) |  | Author: Sean Wilentz
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
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Rating:  54 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1 Reprint
Pages: 608
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.4
ISBN: 0060744812
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9780060744816
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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 dominated American politics and government from 1974 to 2008. In The Age of Reagan, Sean Wilentz, one of our nation's leading historians, accounts for how a conservative movement once deemed marginal managed to seize power and hold it, and describes the momentous consequences that followed. Vivid, authoritative, and illuminating from start to finish, The Age of Reagan is a groundbreaking chronicle of America's political history since the fall of Nixon.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 54
 Definitely worth reading May 26, 2008
James Wu (Boston, MA, USA)
82 out of 100 found this review helpful
First off, and for the record: no, I did not vote for Al Gore in the 2000 election. Now, having said that: I thought this was a well-written and thought-provoking book by a preeminent historian, and a great example of 'partisan' history (although I think it's also fair to say that Wilentz does make an honest effort at balanced analysis, and of course his forthright thesis is right there in the title: Reagan, for good or ill, defined his--and our--American era). This book is also far better than the Reagan hagiographies cluttering most bookstores (which I couldn't even be bothered to read, and it would seem that way to even the casual browser, as they're mostly picture books anyway). But Wilentz is also balanced, and even, dare I say, nuanced in his approach to both the man and his time.
You may agree with some of the author's points, and disagree with others, but I assure you, the book itself is very well written, and certainly worth your time and energy to invest in. I bought my copy in a bookstore (remember bookstores?) on an impulse, and I was not disappointed--actually, I finished it in a matter of days. Normally, that would be that, but when I looked at this page on Amazon and saw only one one-star review, I decided to step in. This book is NOT as lopsided or unfair as that reviewer would have you believe, and what's more, the reviewer confessed to not finishing the book. I don't know how to do that, myself, even with books I loathe. But I certainly wouldn't have the audacity to publish a review of a book I didn't finish: not only is that unfair to the author, but it speaks of a mindset that does not allow for the hearing of both sides of an issue. 'Partisan,' anyone?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to start Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein. And if someone had told me that I would be reading two serious history books featuring Reagan and Nixon in their titles two or three weeks ago, I would have raised an eyebrow. And yet, here I go.
The Thirty Years War(p) May 29, 2009
Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
Nothing in Sean Wilentz's history of American politics from 1974 to 2008 took me by surprise, except perhaps the author's willingness to give Ronald Reagan the recognition due for his political savvy and charisma. Most Reagan denigrators -- and I admit that I have been one -- have regarded him as a hyped-up Howdy Doody, a useful front for 'conservative' kingmakers. Wilentz actually credits Reagan with being his own man, the master of his own White House, and furthermore with being more flexible and open to pragmatic compromise than either his coterie of advisors or his latter-day disciples. Withholding judgment of his 'ends', Wilentz portrays Reagan as indeed the dominant figure of his Age, far more a man of 'means' than the three presidents who preceded him or the three who followed. Discussing the diplomacy that led to the INF treaty in 1987 as well as other steps toward nuclear disarmament, Wilentz writes:
"To complete that triumph of diplomacy and goodwill, Reagan had to withstand the criticism of many who had informed and reinforced his views of the Soviets for decades but who lacked his own understanding with Gorbachev and other reformers now in control of the Kremlin, a great change was at hand. Call it a triumph of character or idealism or perceptiveness or "wishful thinking" (in George Will's term), or some combination of these. But Reagan's ability to dispense with dogma (including his own) and negotiate with Gorbachev helped bring an end to a nuclear arms race that had terrified the world for forty years. ... Reagan deserves posterity's honor for not adhering stubbornly to the ideas and strategies of cold war conservatism and neoconservatism... His success in helping finally to end the cold war is one of the greatest achievements by any president of the United States -- and arguably the greatest single presidential accomplishment since 1945." (p 281)
Wilentz goes to town, as it were, in distinguishing between the solid core of ideas and ideals to which Reagan adhered, and the sundry rigid ideologies proclaimed in his name by his fragmented political heirs -- neoconservatives, fundamentalist reactionaries, states' rights bigots, free-market dogmatists, anarcho-capitalists, and fanatical libertarians, all of whom paid obeisance to a different idol. All except the evangelicals could be lumped as neoliberals in economic doctrine, but their unreconcilable ideologies and their willingness to 'fight dirty' to impose their ideas on teverybody fused together in the presidency of George W Bush, whom Wilentz perceives as the eventual hypertrophy (the grotesque and unfunctional exaggeration) of "Reaganism," which led to the debacles both foreign and domestic, and the collapse of the conservative paradigm.
The chapters treating Ronald Reagan himself are by far the most interesting of the book. Wilentz has scant praise for any of the other six presidents of the Age, and certainly no bias in favor of either Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II all represented 'failed' presidencies on either economic or diplomatic fronts, or both. In fact, the failures of the Carter administration opened the path for the ascendancy of anti-New Deal crusaders, and the embarrassments of the Clinton administrations, even despite economic recovery, facilitated the disaster of Bush II, with its manifold violations of the Constitution and the Rule of Law.
The Age of Reagan is not a radical revision of anything. It's not based on secret knowledge, long-hidden files, or meticulous academic documentation. It was all in the newspapers, all public info. Anyone whose middle years, like mine, were lived out in the decades from Nixon to GWB, who followed events and who has a decent memory, could honestly have compiled the same text (given the literary skills and editorial discipline). Wilentz tells it just as I remember it! Later historians will dissect, differ over details, and document endlessly, but Wilentz has written the first basic "fair and balanced" history of the rise and fall of the peculiar ideology of American conservatism.
Excellent book with a somewhat misleading title February 25, 2010
Jim (Northern Virginia)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is called "The Age of Reagan", which makes it sound like it's mainly about Ronald Reagan, and probably explains all the disappointed reviews here. Actually, a more accurate title would be "The Political History of the U.S. 1974-2008". Wilentz goes through year by year recounting every political argument or kerfuffle there was. Ketchup as a vegetable, Lani Guiner, Biden's xeroxing, etc.: it's all here for political junkies to savor and remember.
Wilentz calls the book "The Age of Reagan" because his influence is felt over most of the time - the rise of conservatism and tax revolts in the 70s, his administration in the 80s, and lingering effects afterwards. It's fair, but I think "The Political History of the U.S." would have been better.
An excellent overview from the liberal point of view March 26, 2009
Arthur Amchan (McLean, VA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you are a conservative Republican you are going to hate this book; if you are a liberal Democrat, you are probably going to love it. However, the author competently summarizes American History since 1974 without getting the reader bogged down in details. Moreover, I think a reader should welcome Wilentz's evaluation of the events described, rather than be satisfied with a sterile "objective" recitation of facts.
The most interesting part of the book is Wilentz's account of Reagan's decision to treat Gorbachev as a legitimate reformer. This decision was made against the advice of many of Reagan's advisors and was as contrary to Reagan's past history as Nixon's opening to Communist China. One impression I drew from the book is that Reagan's Secretary of State, George Schultz, may be the most underated statesman in our history. He should be considered the equal of George C. Marshall for guiding Reagan on a course that ended the Cold War.
Wilentz is a bit too easy on Clinton, particularly in regards to the expansion of NATO into the Russians' backyard. This was an unnecessary affront to a nation that considers itself a great power and is as protective of its spheres of influence as we are of foreign meddling in the Western hemisphere.
Bonzo goes to Bitburg. Or: Greed is healthy! November 21, 2009
H. Schneider (window seat)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The author, an established `liberal', aims at describing how a conservative movement that once was deemed marginal, managed to seize power and hold it. No hagiography is to be expected, of course, but also no vilification, as per his promise.
Reagan, for his historical importance, is put in a line with Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt I and II. His `age' could have been Nixon's, but for Watergate.
The author says that working on this book changed his own opinion on the subject of RR. Hence, I expected it to change my own, to some extent. Actually, that did not happen.
The book covers the period from 1974 to 2008, starting with a prologue on Nixon and ending with an epilogue on the W-years.
For me, that coincides with my years of wanderings over the globe. I have looked at the world from ever changing perspectives since 74. I had periods of extensive exposure to US matters, mainly during the new century, and also some others with nearly total unawareness, mainly in pre-internet years, while staying in more exotic places. In consequence, the book fills some gaps of my memory, erases some of the white spots in my mental map of contemporary history.
The Ford and Carter chapters are mainly used for the description of the problems that these two outsider Presidents had: domestic (mostly civil rights, economics, and energy related) and abroad (the Vietnam and Cambodia disasters after the American withdrawal, for Ford, the Iran calamity for Carter); Near East trouble for both; and for the description of the build up of the new right, the neo conservative movement, with RR as the spearhead.
A key issue is `détente': Kissinger's `realism' seems to have bothered right wingers quite a lot. I always thought of HK as a bad guy, thinking of Chile, mainly. Looking at his enemies at the time, I am considering that I might like him in this niche... (But no, out of the question).
During these two lackluster presidencies, the momentum of the conservative movement built up, impressively. (If `conservative' means mainly private property and religion, it can just go to the beach, as far as I am concerned. If it means conservation of humanitarian values, I am a conservative.)
I have a problem with the détente chapter: we hear about the diplomacy of meetings with Brezhnev and Mao, and we hear about the Helsinki conference with all the disagreements about the value of the Helsinki agreement (some still don't understand that Helsinki was a major coffin nail for the SU!), but there is not a word about Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, which was the true front rider of the collapse of the Evil Empire. The Berlin Wall would never have fallen peacefully without Brandt's kneeling at Auschwitz and all the related actions. The collapse can't be explained by single causes. Main contributing factors were the softening of the domestic situations after Ostpolitik and Détente, the Afghanistan fiasco, and the competitive pressure from the West. There is no denying RR's contribution, but Wilentz sees his merit less in his hardliner noise than in his ability to talk to Gorbachev and be open. Kudos to the First Lady here, who seems to have developed a solid mistrust of the rightwing advisers who dragged RR into the Iran-contra mess.
Wilentz describes `Reaganism' as an own distinct blend of dogma, pragmatism and mythology, which weaves individualist legends (of the typical American kind) into background noise of communitarian romance, where neighbor helps neighbor. The result is a stunning mixture of contradictions, which is probably the secret of all successful ideologies. (These successes are necessarily temporary.)
We all remember the voodoo economics of the supply siders, not an extinct species unfortunately, and the cute admission by an insider that the term is a euphemism for `trickle down' economics, i.e. make the rich richer, and they will need servants and will buy boats etc and thus spread their wealth to the benefit of all.
Many may have forgotten that Reagan presided over the biggest tax rise in history, in 1982. Such trifles are only disturbing the peace of mind of the good people.
Main topics of the Reagan legacy are the rightward shift of the judiciary, and the mixed experience with deregulation. Well, unless one is religiously bound to the belief in the almighty market, common sense knows that some industries work well when unregulated, others don't. Who would expect the chemical industry to respect toxicity related restriction without regulation? Only dreamers. I have observed that people who like to waffle about their hatred of `big government' usually live in a mental kind of backwoods, definitely not in a modern, urbanized, industrialized 21st century.
Nearly forgot: nurturing the Taliban during the fight against the Soviet invasion can also be seen as a lasting legacy.
For me personally, the Reagan legacy is mainly the memory of this amazing, charming man with the ability to think nothing of making a state visit to a Waffen SS cemetery (and then claiming that these men were victims in the same way as those of the camps). (Admittedly the primary gaffe there was Kohl's, not Reagan's, for selecting Bitburg.)
But then also the guy who said: Mr.Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 54
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