Son of the Midwest, movie star, and mesmerizing politician—America's fortieth president comes to three-dimensional life in this gripping and profoundly revisionist biography.
Gripping ... Dives straight into the contradictions that defined the man ... Boot is particularly good at depicting 1920s small-town America, and he gives full consideration to how religion shaped Reagan’s outlook.
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.
Magisterial ... Perhaps without consciously intending to, Boot has written the first important Reagan biography of the post-Reagan era ... Boot provides fascinating vignettes of Reagan’s upbringing and entertainment career ... Vivid ... [A] splendid biography.
