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 enlarge | Author: Sean Wilentz
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $14.76
You Save: $13.19 (47%)
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Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 10491
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.6
ISBN: 0060744804
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.927
EAN: 9780060744809
ASIN: 0060744804
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Bilge... August 23, 2008
1 out of 24 found this review helpful
Predictable pseudo-history from an avowed Marxist.
Just saw Wilentz on CSPAN. In that interview he actually praises Reagan, unbelievably. I guess he didn't write this book.
By the way, the reviewer Ravitch needs to be liquidated.
Wilenz is the Nigel Tufnel of historians - clueless and self-delusional. August 19, 2008
3 out of 30 found this review helpful
A very funny book. My wife thought I was reading fiction (I was) because of the constant belly-laughing. I guess I never realized that all of Carter's failures were actually great successes and all of Reagan's successes were actually terrible failures. Amazing. Thank god for "intellectuals" telling us the facts (as interpreted by them). If you are looking for a good laugh rent Spinal Tap again. Otherwise avoid this diatribe at all costs.
 More campaign literature than history August 14, 2008
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
Unfortunately this is a book which does a fine historian no credit. It is poorly written with many infelicitous lines but it has some value. Liberals and conservatives will both hate its nuanced appreciation of Reagan, a man of limited understanding but some firm beliefs which turned sometimes in a dangerous direction and finally in a beneficent one.
The book recalls for many of us, both those who voted for Reagan and those appalled by his election, why he won two national races for the presidency: it was a reaction to the disintegration of the old Democratic Party caused by Vietnam and the destruction of the Solid Democratic South by the black uprising some call the Civil Rights movement. The fear of the black underclass motivated many to trust the rightwing Republicans for the first time and this fear continues today with the appearance of Obama as a possible president. McCain may win for the same reasons as Reagan. Obama benefitted from the Civil Rights Movement as did his wife but most blacks are no better off than before the end of segregation. Indeed many were better off on the Southern plantations.
Wilentz is a liberal Democrat but he has a good sense of where Reagan properly responded to what Americans really wanted and needed. His analysis is fair and balanced, certainly more so than Fox News' contributions. Wilentz has a good handle on the reasons why Bush 43 is a disaster, the worst president since James Buchanan and perhaps even worse than Buchanan. His sympathy for Bill Clinton does not conceal the real weaknesses and deficiencies of Clinton, both personal and political.
But in the last analysis this book has been gotten up for the 2008 election and it will not stand as any kind of permanent resource in our political history. Wilentz has missed the boat here, I fear.
Don't bother...it's predictable August 13, 2008
5 out of 30 found this review helpful
If you are looking for an objective history of the Reagan Administration, look elsewhere. This guy lists himself as a Pulitzer finalist...well, I hope hope he doesn't expect to win anytime soon. Politically, he's a teacher at Princeton -- enough said. The book is predictable, almost elementary.
In the introduction, Wilentz brags that he didn't conduct any interviews because it would have taken too much time. The end result is as expected. Ronald Reagan is the bogeyman. The most popular president of my lifetime only gets credit for Iran-Contra. Meanwhile, Wilentz's beloved Democrats manage to overcome despite Ronald Reagan. It reminds me of the old New York City party joke: How did Reagan win? no one I know voted for him. I suspect none of Wilentz' friends voted for him either.
Wilentz is entitled to his opinion, But please don't pass it off as fact.
Then there'd the writing. I was taught that adjectives were cheap. Well, Wilentz is the master if the ham-handed adjective. Every Republican is "mean-spirited" while every Democrats is courageous or (at the time) misunderstood.
If you are looking for a predictable "Princeton" editorial of the Reagan Era era, this the book for you. If you want to be enlightened and learn something, I suggest look elsewhere.
Don't' buy this book, you can have mine-- not that I want I want the dis-information to spread. Wilentz doesn't want to waste his energy conducting interviews -- don't waste your energy reading it.
Waste of Time and Money August 10, 2008
6 out of 31 found this review helpful
Sean Wilentz is an awoved Marxist with a long track record of writing tendentious leftist history -all hailed as magisterial by his fellow leftist academics. For anyone willing to do their own reading and be their own critic, the bias and political agenda in his work is plain to see.
Take a few minutes, if you can, before buying this one to read the preface. The outrageously absurd comments on President Bush and the Republican Party generally tell you all you need to know about Wilentz's perspective, his political agenda and his reasons for writing this book - and his competence as well. Anyone who seriously believes the nonsense he spouts there shouldn't be writing history - he shows a total lack of the ability to read objectively, weigh sources and penetrate beneath the slogans to the reality.
If you really want to understand Reagan, try something by Steve Hayward.
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