The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

It is not all that common that one of the university presses like OUP would publish a book that treats a conservative icon with a glowing praise, even when that book is aimed at a general audience. Even more unusual is the title of this book, which minces no words in characterizing its subject in such an uncompromising and definitive terms as "The Reagan Revolution." Ronald Reagan was one of the most significant American presidents of the twentieth century, and part of his enduring appeal stems from his willingness to portray the most important issues of the day in straightforward terms. His characterization of the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" resonates to this day. Gil Troy gives us a very interesting and favorable portrayal of Reagan, but he manages to avoid turning this book into some kind of hagiography. He describes Reagan's early youth in Illinois, and tries to establish some of the influences on his character that remained over the years. Troy is not shy of psychoanalyzing Reagan, but for the most part these assessments have a lot of face validity and generally flow well with the image of the 40th President. We also learn quite a bit about Reagan' political career, and his climb to the top of US politics. Overall these are all very interesting bits of information. One of the issues that I have with this book is that it spends too much time on either the background material that builds up to Reagan's presidency, including the general political trends in the US, or on the assessment of that presidency in terms of later political and social developments. Personally I would have liked if the book focused more on Reagan himself and let the presidency years speak for themselves. Furthermore, Troy seems to be overly eager to stress the facts that Reagan was no hard-core conservative, and was in fact rather moderate in his policies. This assessment, whether justified or not, is not very likely to jive well with either the conservatives or liberals today. In fact, Troy seems to be backtracking from the very title of this book, and even suggesting that if there was such a thing as The Reagan Revolution it was both a) limited and b) over by now. This attitude almost nullifies the otherwise very favorable account of Reagan legacy. Nonetheless, this is a very interesting book and well worth the read.