
Reaganland
America's Right Turn 1976-1980
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Narrated by:
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Samantha Desz
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Jonathan Todd Ross
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Jacques Roy
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Gabra Zackman
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By:
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Rick Perlstein
About this listen
A New York Times notable book of 2020
From the best-selling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power.
Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga's final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement.
In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford's defeat, too old to make another run. His comeback was fueled by an extraordinary confluence: fundamentalist preachers and former segregationists reinventing themselves as militant crusaders against gay rights and feminism; business executives uniting against regulation in an era of economic decline; a cadre of secretive "New Right" organizers deploying state-of-the-art technology, bending political norms to the breaking point - and Reagan's own unbending optimism, his ability to convey unshakable confidence in America as the world's "shining city on a hill". Meanwhile, a civil war broke out in the Democratic party. When President Jimmy Carter called Americans to a new ethic of austerity, Senator Ted Kennedy reacted with horror, challenging him for reelection. Carter's Oval Office tenure was further imperiled by the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, near-catastrophe at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant, aviation accidents, serial killers on the loose, and endless gas lines.
Backed by a reenergized conservative Republican base, Reagan ran on the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" - and prevailed. Reaganland is the story of how that happened, tracing conservatives' cutthroat strategies to gain power and explaining why they endure four decades later.
©2020 Eric S. Perlstein. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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The Monuments Men
- Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
- By: Robert M. Edsel, Bret Witter
- Narrated by: Jeremy Davidson
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture.
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Interesting listen
- By Daniel W. Eggemeier on 12-22-09
By: Robert M. Edsel, and others
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JFK
- Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956
- By: Fredrik Logevall
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 29 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time of his assassination in 1963, John F. Kennedy stood at the helm of the greatest power the world had ever seen, a booming American nation that he had steered through some of the most perilous diplomatic standoffs of the Cold War. Born in 1917 to a striving Irish American family that had become among Boston’s wealthiest, Kennedy knew political ambition from an early age, and his meteoric rise to become the youngest elected president cemented his status as one of the most mythologized figures in American history.
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Excellent Portrait of JFK & His Times
- By John David on 12-14-20
By: Fredrik Logevall
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The Last Honest Man
- The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy
- By: James Risen, Thomas Risen - contributor
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Senator Frank Church of Idaho was an unlikely hero. He led congressional opposition to the Vietnam War and had become a scathing, radical critic of what he saw as American imperialism around the world. But he was still politically ambitious, privately yearning for acceptance from the foreign policy establishment that he hated and eager to run for president. Despite his flaws, Church would show historic strength in his greatest moment, when in the wake of Watergate he was suddenly tasked with investigating abuses of power in the intelligence community.
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why do so many books have a liberal bias?
- By Doug Altrichter on 08-20-23
By: James Risen, and others
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Embers of War
- The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam
- By: Fredrik Logevall
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 32 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In this landmark work that will forever change your understanding of how and why America went to war in Vietnam, author Fredrik Logevall taps newly accessible diplomatic archives in several nations and traces the path that led two Western nations to tragically lose their way in the jungles of Southeast Asia. He brings to life the bloodiest battles of France’s final years in Indochina - and describes how, from an early point, a succession of American leaders made disastrous policy choices that put America on its own collision course with history.
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Understanding Why We failed the People of Vietnam
- By VA on 03-22-21
By: Fredrik Logevall
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Reagan
- His Life and Legend
- By: Max Boot
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 32 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In this “monumental and impressive” biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president’s aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot provides “the best biography of Ronald Reagan to date” (Robert Mann).
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Has An Agenda
- By CC on 01-07-25
By: Max Boot
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The First Tycoon
- The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
- By: T.J. Stiles
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 28 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire.
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Great! If you can get through it...
- By john on 08-08-10
By: T.J. Stiles
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Destiny and Power
- The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 25 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the 41st president and his family, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times.
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Fair and insightful
- By Jean on 12-02-15
By: Jon Meacham
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Homeland
- The War on Terror in American Life
- By: Richard Beck
- Narrated by: Patrick Harrison
- Length: 21 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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For twenty years after September 11, the war on terror was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. With all of the military violence occurring overseas even as the threat of sudden mass death permeated life at home, Americans found themselves living in two worlds at the same time. In one of them, soldiers fought overseas so that nothing at home would have to change at all. In the other, life in the United States took on all kinds of unfamiliar shapes, changing people’s sense of themselves, their neighbors, and the strangers they sat next to on airplanes.
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Cool book
- By mason cook on 02-11-25
By: Richard Beck
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The Definitive FDR
- Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (1882-1940) and Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (1940-1945)
- By: James MacGregor Burns
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 58 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the longest serving president in US history, reshaping the country during the crises of the Great Depression and World War II. James MacGregor Burns's magisterial two-volume biography tells the complete life story of the fascinating political figure who instituted the New Deal. The Lion and the Fox details Roosevelt's youth, education, and his rise to national prominence, through his first two terms as president. The Soldier of Freedom is a moving profile of a leader gifted with rare political talent in an era of extraordinary challenges.
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Dedicated Author
- By Michael on 01-13-24
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Vietnam
- An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, Peter Noble
- Length: 33 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the US in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people.
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A more nuanced view than Ken Burns' companion book
- By Vu on 10-21-18
By: Max Hastings
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Accidental Presidents
- Eight Men Who Changed America
- By: Jared Cohen
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Accidental Presidents looks at eight men who came to the office without being elected to it. It demonstrates how the character of the man in that powerful seat affects the nation and world.
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LOVE LOVE LOVE this book
- By Samuel Stephen Ross on 05-03-19
By: Jared Cohen
What listeners say about Reaganland
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- RH
- 01-13-22
Very strong finish to this 4-volume series
Riveting and informative. I think the weakest of this series was the third volume, although it was overall quite good. This last volume was excellent--a sobering examination of how Reagan won the 1980 election. There were multiple readers, all very good.
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- Katherine Stefan
- 12-08-21
they bleep out a bunch of words
this is one of the best books I've read. however, some of these politicians said bad things, and instead of showing this they bleep it out
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2 people found this helpful
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- Joshua
- 04-06-21
Exemplary and Informative
So much of this story has never been told, and this book tells it in an engaging fashion.
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- jeff lewis
- 10-25-21
essential
once again, essential reading for understanding the world today. Perlstein's fly on the wall history let's you feel right in the moment
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- NYC Reader
- 02-03-22
70s politics
This book told the story of the politics of the 1970s. The main story was the 1980 election. I liked the diversity and the parts of the events of the 70s.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-04-24
good book
I disliked that they used two seperate narrators. both were good, but it was jarring to go back and forth.
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- Peter
- 01-26-21
Great but held back by the actual history
Another great entry but not quite as good as the previous entries of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge, largely because the scope of the story focuses so much on the cultural war issues of busing, LBGTQ rights, and abortion.
This is no fault of the author as it is simply reporting on the decisive issues of the day, but such issues are (and remain) much more morally draining to listen to than the other issues outlined in previous books (Vietnam vets infighting, the gold standard, price controls, the Moonies, labor unions, Watergate Babies, the ERA, the and more).
Best highlights: The rise and fall of the consumer protection movement, the consistent misfunctionings of the "Georgia Mafia" under Carter and their conflicts with fellow Democratic compatriots, and the in-depth look at Jimmy Carter's soul-searching and media disappearance that pre-empted the infamous "Crisis of Confidence" speech.
Least great highlights: Ronald Regan himself is actually quite boring. He appears to be a fairly vapid individual blessed with charisma and divine mission to be the vector of the conservative right. In practice, he ended up riding the tide more than causing the tide it appears.
Overall, this was good, but I reckon Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge were both better, with The Invisible Bridge being my favorite in the series that started with Before the Storm (which I have not read). Your mileage may vary.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Tyson Lindley
- 12-06-22
Fascinating Looking Glass
It’s much easier to understand how we arrive at our current state after listening to this. Excellent deep dive.
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- Kindle Customer
- 04-25-23
Excellent
Just filling in the blanks of my youth. I was living in Hawaii and in the Navy. Seems I missed a lot. This is an excellent history and fits with what I remembered. I voted for John Anderson too.
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- Tad Davis
- 10-27-20
Brilliant
Ronald Reagan doesn’t come off well in this book, to put it mildly. It’s hard to take him seriously as a hero, politician, or President after reading it. His intellectual grasp of issues was limited, and his view of the world was simplistic and schematic. Yes, he was a great storyteller, but as it turns out many of the stories he told, even about himself, were badly remembered or simply made up.
He’s not the only one who comes off badly. I’ve been a big fan of Jimmy Carter all my life, but Perlstein’s account of his Presidency has forced me to rethink much of that. One of his most frequent blunders, according to Perlstein, was going public with a policy without consulting any of the Democrats in Congress first — finding out only after the fact that most of them were opposed. Or, flipping the coin, suddenly abandoning a policy after finally getting Congressional leaders to get behind it — and letting them find out about his change of mind from the news media. Carter’s administration did not play well with others.
It was a turning point in American politics, a period when opposing sides on various issues — from taxes to gay rights — hardened into moral crusades. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, and the NRA all date their growing national influence to this period. Perlstein’s brilliance as a reporter is to go deeply into well-researched and meticulously documented detail and yet still maintain the momentum of the overall narrative. I’ve read the other three books in this series, and now I want to read them all again.
There are four narrators, one for each year — 1977-1980 — each year being a separate section in the book. All are good, and the variety helped, given the length and the detail of the narrative.
As someone who lived and voted his way through this period, I can say with conviction: if you want to know what it was like — or you want to be reminded what it was like — read this book. Better still, read all four books in the series: you will come away with a better understanding of American conservatism and the people who have made it such a dominant force in our national life in the 21st century.
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13 people found this helpful