First published 2014
Rick Perlstein examines how America lost faith in itself during the 1970s and how Ronald Reagan capitalized on that crisis. Nixon's Watergate scandal destroyed trust in government. CIA assassination plots came to light. South Vietnam fell despite decades of American sacrifice. Economic turmoil gripped the nation. Politicians assumed Americans wanted leaders who acknowledged the country's limitations. Reagan rejected that assumption. When he challenged President Ford in 1976, political experts laughed at the former Hollywood actor. They stopped laughing when Reagan nearly won the nomination. Perlstein traces Reagan's rise against a backdrop of national trauma including the oil embargo, Patty Hearst's kidnapping, and New York City's financial collapse. The author shows how Reagan invented modern conservative politics by refusing to accept American decline. He offered optimism when others counseled humility. Perlstein explores what it means to believe in America when the nation's power seems to be fading.
Genres: history, 20th-century, political-science, non-fiction, biography-memoir, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: America, South Vietnam
Period: 1970s
880 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster