Posted on 06/09/2004 7:24:11 AM PDT by nov7freedomday
I wish to purchase the best book available on Ronald Wilson Reagan. I would like to focus on the concrete issues, policies, and actions he took as President (and to a lesser extent Govenor). I know there are many books out there and would appreciate the feed back.
Unfortunately I don't have a ready reply, but I am bookmarking this. I'm sure we'll end up with lots of good recommendations! Thanks for posting.
bump for watching
His autobiography, An American Life is excellent and I think kids can learn a lot from it. Lou Cannon's book is good, but I don't think kids need so much of the behind the scenes political wrangling stories and all of that. If they want the principles, both philosophical, and strategic, of his attitudes about the world, about handling people, about leading, then I recommend his own words.
"Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader" by Dinesh D'Souza
"When Character Was King" by Peggy Noonan
It's published by Dorling Kindersley.
Regards, Ivan
Ditto. Those two and his autobiography are all recommended reading. If I was going to choose one (hmmmm, tough call), I think I might go with the audio version of his autobiography since he read it himself.
I'm gonna purchase a few of these the day that Clinton's comes out.
That would be awesome if books on Reagan outsold his!
Dinesh D'Souza's book is one of the better ones.
If you wish to learn RR's plan to end the cold war I would recommend "Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union"
by Peter Schweizer
For a good understanding of Reagan the man, I highly recommend "Dutch" by Edmund Morris. While it was initially panned by some hard core Reaganites when it was first released (even by those who admittedly hadn't read it) partly because it was written in the unique style of the author creating a fictitious first person whose life path crossed from time to time with Reagan and partly because it dared to suggest that Reagan wasn't perfection incarnate, the book was, overall, quite complementary of Reagan. For instance, while the democrats and other lefties have always suggested that Reagan was a political airhead, you learn in the book that Reagan was extremely oriented towards politics and political debate from early on - so much so that during his film career in the 1950s, he got the reputation of being a bit of a bore at Hollywood parties because he always wanted to get into detailed and technical political discussions. It's a good, colorful, entertaining read that certainly gave me added respected for the man.
Was this the writer who came up w/the "Tear Down this Wall" phrase? Name looks vaguely familiar. Read an article about it either in American Heritage or American History a year ago or so.
The Bible.................
See if you can find a copy of "Speaking My Mind", which is a collection of Reagan's important speeches -- while it won't be enough by itself, having it will help put the insider and historical texts into sharper relief.
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