The Reagan Presidency And The Governing Of America

The presidency of Ronald Reagan has become a Rorschach Test for politicians and citizens alike. While many conservatives see the Reagan era of the 1980s as the high-water mark for their movement and a time of national recovery from the difficulties of the 1970s, many liberals maintain that the rosy Reagan legacy is based largely on myth, and that in fact his eight years as president caused serious harm to the country. John Ehrman and Michael W. Flamm give due attention to the lasting controversies surrounding the Reagan record and provide a balanced view of the fortieth president's foreign and domestic policies. Students are encouraged to draw their own conclusions by reading key primary documents.

The Reagan presidency has been both eulogised and reviled. Supporters have claimed that Ronald Reagan not only regenerated American power and restored American prestige but changed the direction of domestic policy in a way which marked the end of a twenty year period of expanding government. This book explores the Reagan policy style and substance. It considers the initial aspirations of the two Reagan administrations, examines the constraints with which they had to contend, and assesses the legacy of achievement and failure.

The Reagan Presidency: Ten Intimate Perspectives of Ronald Reagan is part of a continuing Miller Center series of presidential portraits. This volume of the series examines the political forces and personal characteristics that shaped the Reagan presidency. Cabinet members, a counsel to the president, scholars, journalists, a chief of staff, and other professionals in the administration attended Miller Center forums to discuss important domestic and international issues from the Reagan presidency. Their vast professional and political experience and firsthand accounts provide an intimate perspective on Reagan's presidency and serve as a source of information and reference for historians of the administration. As it did with previous oral histories, the Miller Center hosted representatives from the press, public service, and academia. The forum audiences included supporters and critics of the administration and scholars of presidential politics. Their participation not only sparked debate on important aspects of the Reagan presidency but also broadened and enhanced this discussion of governance. This book addresses the essential themes of the Reagan presidency: governance, the role of communication, domestic policy, international trade, international policy, and post-Cold War strategy. The book examines Reagan's leadership style, analyzes the role of the media in presidential politics, explores the Reagan administration's unique policy challenges, and reviews the effects of their policy choices. The volume concludes with an assessment of Reagan's administration and its place in the history of contemporary presidents.

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.

In Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Freedom, Andrew E. Busch goes beyond economic and foreign policies to examine Reagan's understanding of statesmanship. Busch analyzes Reagan's conscious attempt to strengthen the separation of powers, federalism, and traditional rhetoric, and his efforts to revive the notion of limited government in a Constitutional Republic. In this important new study, Busch concludes that Ronald Reagan's politics of freedom--found in his discourse, policy, and coalition-building--achieved significant successes in the 1980s and beyond.