1980s Books

The Reagan Diaries

Ronald Reagan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 118 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

During his two terms as the fortieth president of the United States, Ronald Reagan kept a daily diary in which he recorded, by hand, his innermost thoughts and observations on the extraordinary, the historic, and the routine day-to-day occurrences of his presidency. Now, nearly two decades after he left office, this remarkable record—the only daily presidential diary in American history—is available for the first time.

Brought together in one volume and edited by historian Douglas Brinkley, The Reagan Diaries provides a striking insight into one of this nation's most important presidencies and sheds new light on the character of a true American leader. Whether he was in his White House residence study or aboard Air Force One, each night Reagan wrote about the events of his day, which often included his relationships with other world leaders Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II, Mohammar al-Qaddafi, and Margaret Thatcher, among others, and the unforgettable moments that defined the era—from his first inauguration to the end of the Cold War, the Iran hostage crisis to John Hinckley Jr.'s assassination attempt.

The Reagan Diaries reveals more than just Reagan's political experiences: many entries are concerned with the president's private thoughts and feelings—his love and devotion for Nancy Reagan and their family, his belief in God and the power of prayer. Seldom before has the American public been given access to the unfiltered experiences and opinions of a president in his own words, from Reagan's description of near-drowning at the home of Hollywood friend Claudette Colbert to his determination to fight Fidel Castro at every turn and keep the Caribbean Sea from becoming a "Red Lake."

To read these diaries—filled with Reagan's trademark wit, sharp intelligence, and humor—is to gain a unique understanding of one of the most beloved occupants of the Oval Office in our nation's history.

Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80's

Hunter S. Thompson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Take this in small doses 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

What we have here are over 100 op-ed pieces (about 2 1/2 book pages each) that ran in the San Francisco Examiner over a three-year period, December 1985 thru November 1988 and are now compiled in Gonzo Papers Volume 2 (Volume 1 was The Great Shark Hunt). These were originally meant to be read at the rate of one a week, but of course you can increase your speed on this compilation. However, I read them in a handful of sittings and suffered from severe overload. First of all, at this fast rate you get a good deal of duplication that waters down the overall affect Thompson was trying to create in his weekly column. Thompson reminds me of the famous Groucho Marx line: "Whatever it is, he's against it!" Just picked at random: "Any baboon with a healthy heart and good diction... could do Neil Frank's job (director of the National Hurricane Center). President Reagan: "...seems to be dumber than three mules." Frank Sinatra: "...is said to be smart, but he was fired and cut off from every casino in New Jersey when he tried to play blackjack by rules he learned in Nevada...They chased him out like a wino. It was an ugly thing to see." And these quotes all come from just one article. Pick a name or event from the headlines of these three years and you'll find a bombastic opinion from Thompson aimed directly at it. It is a fun and funny read. You'll find yourself thinking and speaking in the Thompson style. It's addictive. But, too much at one time can put you over the top. For more reasons than one, this would make for good bathroom reading material.

Editorial Review:

Generation of Swine, the second volume of the legendary Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's bestselling "Gonzo Papers," was first published in 1988 and is now back in print.

Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best -- covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN -- 24 hours of mainline news. Showcasing his inimitable talent for social and political analysis, Generation of Swine is vintage Thompson -- eerily prescient, incisive, and enduring.

Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987

Bob Woodward

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

What Casey was thinking 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This book presents the history of the CIA during William Casey's tenure, from 1981 to 1987. Woodward focused the book primarily on William Casey himself. The book details not only the various operations that the CIA was involved in during the 1980s, but also Casey's motivations for his leadership decisions. The CIA operations described in the book include everything from the mundane details of placing bugs in the offices of foreign leaders to the Iran-Contra affair.

Woodward gathered material from a variety of sources when writing this book. One of his primary sources was Casey himself. Woodward interviewed Casey on numerous occasions, and Casey was aware that Woodward was compiling material for a book about his leadership of the CIA. Casey was surprisingly forthcoming about his involvement in many covert operations. He must have felt confident that Woodward would not betray his trust and expose any material prematurely. What is odd is that Woodward discusses not only Casey's professional life, but also his personal life, and includes comments about such things as peanuts getting caught in Casey's dentures that seem mean-spirited rather than relevant for the story. Nevertheless, the historical documentation of Casey's leadership and CIA activities in the 1980s makes the book well worth reading.

Editorial Review:

Veil is the story of the covert wars that were waged in Central America, Iran and Libya in a secretive atmosphere and became the centerpieces and eventual time bombs of American foreign policy in the 1980s.

An American Life: The Autobiography

Ronald Reagan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this remarkable autobiography, Ronald Reagan presents a definitive personal account of his historic presidency. With uncompromising candor, modesty, and wit, he tells the story of his life -- public and private -- and reveals the events that shaped his reluctant candidacy and the decision-making process that led to his first nomination; the unseen dangers of Gorbachev's first visit to America; startling facts about top-secret meetings involving heads of state; his frustrations with Congress; and his relationships with the members of his Cabinet.

Here are the behind-the-scenes details of the great themes and dramatic crises marking Reagan's eight years in office, from Lebanon to Grenada, from the struggle to achieve arms control to tax reform, and his unprecedented personal diplomacy with major foreign leaders. His narrative is full of new insights and often surprising revelations regarding his innermost feelings about life in the White House, the assassination attempt, his family -- and the enduring love between him and his wife Nancy.

An American Life is an inspiring American success story, a brilliant self-portrait, and a compelling and significant work of history.

The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism

Paul Kengor

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Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Based on extraordinary research: a major reassessment of Ronald Reagan's lifelong crusade to dismantle the Soviet Empire–including shocking revelations about the liberal American politician who tried to collude with USSR to counter Reagan's efforts

Paul Kengor's God and Ronald Reagan made presidential historian Paul Kengor's name as one of the premier chroniclers of the life and career of the 40th president. Now, with The Crusader, Kengor returns with the one book about Reagan that has not been written: The story of his lifelong crusade against communism, and of his dogged–and ultimately triumphant–effort to overthrow the Soviet Union.

Drawing upon reams of newly declassified presidential papers, as well as untapped Soviet media archives and new interviews with key players, Kengor traces Reagan's efforts to target the Soviet Union from his days as governor of California to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of what he famously dubbed the "Evil Empire." The result is a major revision and enhancement of what historians are only beginning to realize: That Reagan not only wished for the collapse of communism, but had a deep and specific understanding of what it would take––and effected dozens of policy shifts that brought the USSR to its heels within a decade of his presidency.

The Crusader makes use of key sources from behind the Iron Curtain, including one key memo that implicates a major American liberal politician–still in office today–in a scheme to enlist Soviet premier Yuri Andropov to help defeat Reagan's 1984 reelection bid. Such new finds make The Crusader not just a work of extraordinary history, but a work of explosive revelation that will be debated as hotly in 2006 as Reagan's policies were in the 1980s.

Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years

Haynes Johnson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

CAREFUL, OBJECTIVE, THE FACTS WITHOUT COMMENT FROM A TRUE PROFESSIONAL GENTLEMAN JOURNALIST HISTORIAN/ THE TRUTH OF REAGAN/BUSH 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This good book provides a healthy and bracing antidote to the recently forged Reagan Diary hoax, although this book seems soft on REagan, Bush, Ollie North and the rest. But that is simply the author's professional and gentle style from an earlier age of journalism, long before the rage of Hannity, Coulter and O'Reilly, when Rush was still an oddity and an anomaly, when journalism was not yet mere slap down steel cage entertainment but the scholarly presentation of historical facts clearly and concisely, as in this book, as in Murrow, as in IF Stone.



This book contains the facts of that age, objectively written by a trained journalist and historian and a true professional and gentleman with full access to all parties, the objective truth and facts about the long national nightmare which was and still is the Reagan/Bush dynastic regime, from which we as a nation still struggle to awaken and may never succeed.



As you can see I would prefer a little more polemic on the part of the author, but he is a skilled professional correctly concerned with maintaining his access to all parties and yet presenting the truth. Thus, while restraining himself from commenting directly nor editorializgin at length regarding the phenomena of that time, he skillfully does so indirectly through quotes from the players and writers of that age. We therefore read the harshest words regarding Reagan coming from the mouth of none other than Dick Cheney, quoted at great length. Haynes can wear the velvet glove and fine demeanor, and let others speak the truth no matter whom it disturbs from their eager slumber.



THe most telling section comes near the end with a closing factual summation of the effects of the Reagan administration, moving us from our position as the world's greatest lender nation to its deepest debtor nation, a depth of debt ever spiralling downwards, the destruction of our industrial and our agricultrural base, the destruction of our technological research and development, the destruction of our moral base as a nation from the largesse and self sacrifice called for so effectively by President Kennedy to the lust and unregulated greed under Reagan. We see the facts, gently presented of all of the Reagan scandals, noted by Haynes Johnson calmly in passing without outrage we might expect now, like a bored tour guide might indicate the town square stone, but letting us read the horrors there written.



For this is the teflon journalist. He points out the truth of the horror and the mud and the corruption and the dirt, but none of it sticks to him. He is too clever for that. Yet we read between the lines and we read directly the lines and we see the truth of that horrendous administration.



We must read again this book and remember the truth, for we have fallen far more deeply and we cannot get up. Whereas Reagan cut taxes and went into debt to fund his military nmonstrosities and absurdities, we go far more deeply into dept to fund an unfounded yet endless war in Iraq, consuming officially $86 billion every six months, but actually much much more for no clear nor strategic reason. We have lost nearly four thousands officially counted servicemen and women, yet actually much much more, including in civilians, women and children murdered, for what purpose.



Thus this book with its modest figures of corruption, administrative negligence and wasteful military spending bankrupting us for generations to come as our infrastructure collapses and melts down, seems like small change compared to what is happening now. Read this book, read the facts, and you will see. Reagan played Nero to the current Caligula.



Excellent book requiring space in every school library and in every truly patriotic American home. Well written, judicious, careful and correct.

Editorial Review:

National bestseller: In this brilliantly readable book, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist chronicles the Reagan decade, when America fell from dominant world power to struggling debtor nation and when optimism turned to foreboding. In human terms and living case histories, Haynes Johnson captures the drama and tragedy of an era nurtured by greed and a morality that found virtue in not getting caught.

"It is morning again in America," Reagan's campaign commercials told us, and for too long we embraced that convenient lie. Indeed, the problems that came to plague us in that decade are with us even more today, as Johnson memorably demonstrates in—his afterword, "Notes on an Era," written especially for this new paperback reissue. This book will remain a signature work of political analysis for years to come.

"We saw it all," James Michener said. "Now Haynes Johnson tells us what it meant."

32 b/w illustrations.

President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination

Richard Reeves

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

An Excellent Book 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I'm not sure what book some of the reviewers here are reading, but it cannot be the same tome. Some claim this book is contemptuous towards Reagan, but I cannot detect a hint of that so-called "contempt" in this book, and this is coming from someone who believes that Reagan was the best President of the past fifty years, though obviously that is not saying much. Rather, what I see is a revealing, fair account of Reagan and his legacy. Certainly, many sections of the book do not give Reagan as much credit as I feel he deserves, but that is the great beauty of an unbiased biography, rather than an overly sycophantic or critical one - you get to see Reagan not as a God, but as the wrinkled, tired and yet majestic lion in winter that he really was. In all honesty, the book is so scrupulously fair to Reagan that though there were times when I believed the author was a closet conservative and still other times when I thought he must be a flaming liberal, those moments were so fleeting as to be mere flashes of consciousness - now here, now gone. In the capacity of being balanced, Mr. Reeves' biography is an enviable achievement. My one complaint is that the biography only covers Reagan's presidency, without his earlier years as context, but perhaps that is to desire too much of a good thing. Ultimately, whether you like Reagan or not, you will find something to enjoy in this book, though you may also find yourself occasionally shifting uncomfortably in your seat as the reality of his Presidency gently intrudes on your mind.

Editorial Review:

Richard Reeves's acclaimed account of a presidency solves the puzzle of Ronald Reagan -- a man of limited breadth and knowledge who was perhaps the most effective superpower president.

Using the techniques he employed in his bestselling books on Presidents Kennedy and Nixon, Reeves takes us inside Reagan's Oval Office, where we find a charismatic, crafty, focused politician. Astonishing in its intimacy, authoritative in its sourcing, President Reagan is a portrait of modern presidential power that will stand as the definitive study of Reagan in the White House.

The Reagan Diaries, Leatherbound Edition

Ronald Reagan

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Editorial Review:

During his two terms as the fortieth president of the United States, Ronald Reagan kept a daily diary in which he recorded, by hand, his innermost thoughts and observations on the extraordinary, the historic, and the routine day-to-day occurrences of his presidency. Now, nearly two decades after he left office, this remarkable record—the only daily presidential diary in American history—is available for the first time.

Brought together in one volume and edited by historian Douglas Brinkley, The Reagan Diaries provides a striking insight into one of this nation's most important presidencies and sheds new light on the character of a true American leader. Whether he was in his White House residence study or aboard Air Force One, each night Reagan wrote about the events of his day, which often included his relationships with other world leaders Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II, Mohammar al-Qaddafi, and Margaret Thatcher, among others, and the unforgettable moments that defined the era—from his first inauguration to the end of the Cold War, the Iran hostage crisis to John Hinckley Jr.'s assassination attempt.

The Reagan Diaries reveals more than just Reagan's political experiences: many entries are concerned with the president's private thoughts and feelings—his love and devotion for Nancy Reagan and their family, his belief in God and the power of prayer. Seldom before has the American public been given access to the unfiltered experiences and opinions of a president in his own words, from Reagan's description of near-drowning at the home of Hollywood friend Claudette Colbert to his determination to fight Fidel Castro at every turn and keep the Caribbean Sea from becoming a "Red Lake."

To read these diaries—filled with Reagan's trademark wit, sharp intelligence, and humor—is to gain a unique understanding of one of the most beloved occupants of the Oval Office in our nation's history.

President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime

Lou Cannon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This is possibly the single best book available on the Reagan presidency. Lou Cannon began reporting on Ronald Reagan as a journalist when Reagan first ran for governor of California in 1966, and then covered him again in Washington after his 1980 presidential election. In short, there is probably no man or woman who has spent more years writing about the Gipper than Cannon. The result is a magisterial account of Reagan's two terms in the White House. Cannon is broadly sympathetic to his subject, but also coolly detached. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime pulled off the remarkable feat of winning praise from both Reagan's admirers and detractors when it was first published in 1991. This reissued edition, which includes a new preface describing Reagan's postpresidential descent into the abyss of Alzheimer's disease, must now be considered the standard text on the subject--especially in light of the controversy surrounding the book that aspired to Cannon's mantle, Edmund Morris's quasi biography Dutch.

Cannon's book is full of wise analysis and sound observation. He explains Reagan's success convincingly: "Optimism was not a trivial or peripheral quality. It was the essential ingredient of an approach to life.... [Reagan] had a knack of converting others to his optimism, almost as if he drew upon some private reservoir of self-esteem. People who listened to Reagan tended to feel good about him and better about themselves." Though the book bursts with detail, it's never so cumbersome that it bogs down Cannon's narrative. And these pages give only cursory attention to Reagan's life before the White House; this is more a biography of President Reagan than of Ronald Reagan. Conservatives who are defensive about Reagan's legacy may bristle at certain points; Cannon's portrait is not always a flattering one. Yet it's a compelling biography of a compelling man's most important years. It's possible to imagine that a fuller biography of Reagan will be written some day. Right now, however, this is the best there is--and it's very, very good. --John J. Miller

Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency

Peter Wallison

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A former Reagan White House Counsel presents a comprehensive picture of Ronald Reagan, focusing on how his distinctive leadership style was the source of both his setbacks and his success.

An icon of the twentieth century, Ronald Reagan has earned a place among the most popular and successful U.S. presidents. In this compelling firsthand account of Reagan's presidency, Peter J. Wallison, former White House Counsel to President Reagan, argues that Reagan took office with a fully developed public philosophy and strategy for governing that was unique among modern presidents. "I am not a great man," Reagan once said, "just committed to great ideas."

Wallison shows how Reagan's unyielding attachment to certain key ideas--communicated through his speeches--created a cohesive administration and revived the spirit of the nation. In Ronald Reagan, Wallison describes what it was like to be on Reagan's White House staff and how Reagan's attachment to principle produced both the best and worst days of his presidency. Updated with a new epilogue.