For the person in your life obsessed with presidential biographies, Boot's newest book is a deeply reported look into the life of Ronald Reagan. Covering his childhood, his Hollywood years and, of course, his presidency, Boot portrays a man that is somehow both more ideological and more pragmatic than we might think.--Andrew Limbong "NPR"
This remoteness has frustrated previous biographers. But Mr. Boot responds with doggedness, evoking Reagan's early life in small-town Illinois, college years and early forays into politics. Mr. Boot is a gifted enough writer to prevent this accretion of detail from becoming a slog, and Reagan's apparent lack of an inner life becomes a benefit: it keeps the focus on Reagan's actions, which matter far more than a politician's thoughts or feelings. Though his rhetoric may have been strident, his actions, Mr. Boot convincingly argues, were deeply pragmatic. That is what made him so effective when his party never fully controlled Congress. But he also courted segregationists and homophobes for political benefit, even though he professed to hold no racial prejudice.-- "The Economist"
Forty years after Ronald Reagan's last run for the White House, journalist and foreign policy analyst Max Boot constructs the most extensive biography to date of the 40th U.S. president. Boot points to Reagan as a public figure who was famously difficult to know, though the author does his best to capture the 20th century's most dominant conservative by talking with Reagan's associates.-- "Christian Science Monitor"
Using newly released documents and the perspective of decades, Boot portrays Reagan as a principled conservative, but also a pragmatist who thoughtfully compromised to attain achievable results... Boot's clear-headed biography brims with insightful anecdotes and clears away myth to give a more solid portrait of a remarkable politician.--Booklist, starred review
An unabashed revisionist history of the 40th president of the U.S....The amount of research Boot conducted is immense, and his portrait of Reagan is enhanced not only by the passage of time since Reagan's administrations, but by the author's 100+ forthright interviews and the availability of more archival materials....Boot's account of the life and times of Reagan is, as promised, no hagiography...A prodigiously researched, satisfying presidential bio.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
This is a timely and fascinating book, just what we need to understand, and perhaps transcend, our current age of political paralysis and polarization. Understanding Reagan is key to understanding our politics today.--Walter Isaacson, author of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs
This comprehensive biography--relying on a decade of research, unearthed records, and revealing interviews--separates man from myth, offering a compelling and clear-eyed portrait of this consequential president and the country he shaped.--Karen Tumulty, author of The Triumph of Nancy Reagan
Well researched and reported accurately. Ronald Reagan was a complicated man, yet a caring one. Max Boot beautifully catches the essence of who he was.--Stuart K. Spencer, Ronald Reagan's political consultant, 1966-1984
This is the definitive Reagan biography that so many of us have been waiting for. Max Boot clears away the myths and presents the real Ronald Reagan, with all of his strengths and also his shortcomings. If you like biographies, you'll love Reagan: His Life and Legend.--General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former CIA director
Max Boot's Reagan biography is superb--in my judgment, definitive. He has achieved what Edmund Morris could not--a coherent and compelling portrait of an enigmatic and elusive figure, one which is also notably fair-minded.--Richard North Patterson, political commentator
[A] gripping new biography...Boot's book enters a crowded field, but stands out for its deep research, lucid prose and command of its subject's broad political and social context....More than half the book covers his life before the presidency, and Boot's careful focus on Reagan's early years untangles many of the knots....Boot is particularly good at depicting 1920s small-town America, and he gives full consideration to how religion shaped Reagan's outlook.--Jennifer Burns "New York Times"
The actor Ronald Reagan started his political career as a New Deal Democrat who fought for social justice. He ended it as the Republican president of the United States. In this biography, Boot -- a notable historian who fell out of love with conservatism as another American president, Donald J. Trump, took over the movement -- tells Reagan's story, tugging at the enigma of his life and searching for the seeds of Trumpism in the works and days of the 40th president.--New York Times Book Review, "19 New Books Coming in September"
While not as hagiographic as the new film, Boot's take on the New Deal Democrat turned demonizer of Medicare & GOP icon is generally sympathetic. It's Reagan the pragmatist & compromiser, say reviews.--Michael Giltz, Parade, "Best New Book Releases This Week"
Reagan: His Life and Legend aims to be the definitive biography, and it succeeds. It's a thoughtful, absorbing account. It's also a surprising one. One might expect, given Boot's trajectory, that this would be a full-throated defense of Reagan, the Last Good Republican. But it is not. Although Boot once felt 'incredulous that anyone could possibly compare Reagan to Trump, ' he now sees 'startling similarities.'... Recent events have forced Boot to ask if Reagan was part of the rot that has eaten away at Republicanism. Boot now sees him as complicit in the "hard-right turn" the Party took after Dwight D. Eisenhower which helped set the G.O.P.--and the country--on the path to Trump.... And yet Boot sees a redeeming quality as well: Reagan could relax his ideology.... He viewed the world in black-and-white, yet he governed in gray.--Daniel Immerwahr "New Yorker"
A decade in the making, Boot uses newly unclassified documents, new reporting and analysis, and original interviews with more than 100 sources to craft the possible definitive look at the man.... [Boot writes] deftly and evenhandedly.... So, while every reader will go into his massive work with a set different idea of Reagan the man, by the end of Reagan the book, those ideas may just change a bit. For better or worse.--Bob Ruggiero "Houston Press"
[A] magisterial new biography... Boot has written the first important Reagan biography of the post-Reagan era.... [His] vivid portrait draws on prodigious research.... [This] splendid biography reminds us that Reagan was the leader many Americans felt they needed at a time when they were looking for national restoration, and they may seek his like again.--Geoffrey Kabaservice "Washington Post"
A worthy, impressive example of what a new era in Reagan biography might hold. Boot's book, the product of a decade's careful research, presents the fascinatingly contradictory reality of Reagan...Boot's accounts excels by embracing rather than eliding the paradoxes of Reagan's political career.--Jonathan Darman "Air Mail"
"The passage of more than 30 years since he left office," writes Boot, "affords the kind of understanding of his presidency that historians finally achieved only in the 1980s for the Eisenhower administration." Boot says that while a huge number of books about Reagan exist, none could be described as a "definitive biography, which is what I was trying to achieve." Even Reagan's own children have told Boot they learned new things about their father in the book, so perhaps he has succeeded.--Cliff Cunninham "Sun News Austin"
[An] impeccably researched and thoroughly compelling new biography.... Thanks to Boot's enormously readable and scrupulously honest book, we know more than ever before about this complicated, frustrating and yet oddly magnetic man.--Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times (UK)
Fiction
