
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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Story
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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Watergate
- By: Garrett M. Graff
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy, Garrett M. Graff
- Length: 25 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills enters six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that will change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police. The subsequent arrests of five men seeking to bug and burgle the Democratic National Committee offices—three of them Cuban exiles, two of them former intelligence operatives—quickly unravels a web of scandal that ultimately ends a presidency and forever alters views of moral authority and leadership.
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Elucidating
- By J.B. on 02-23-22
By: Garrett M. Graff
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The Radicalism of the American Revolution
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Grand in scope, rigorous in its arguments, and elegantly synthesizing 30 years of scholarship, Gordon S. Wood's Pulitzer Prize–winning book analyzes the social, political, and economic consequences of 1776. In The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood depicts not just a break with England, but the rejection of an entire way of life: of a society with feudal dependencies, a politics of patronage, and a world view in which people were divided between the nobility and "the Herd."
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Changed the Way I Think
- By Cynthia on 01-04-14
By: Gordon S. Wood
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Eisenhower in War and Peace
- By: Jean Edward Smith
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 28 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Author of the best-seller FDR, Jean Edward Smith is a master of the presidential biography. Setting his sights on Dwight D. Eisenhower, Smith delivers a rich account of Eisenhower’s life using previously untapped primary sources. From the military service in WWII that launched his career to the shrewd political decisions that kept America out of wars with the Soviet Union and China, Smith reveals a man who never faltered in his dedication to serving America, whether in times of war or peace.
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Good, although biased, biography
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-15-12
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An American Life
- By: Ronald Reagan
- Narrated by: Ronald Reagan
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
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Ronald Reagan is an American success story. From modest beginnings in a small midwestern town to a distinguished career in films and television, he lived the American dream; as governor of California and as the centurys most popular president, he embodied and revitalized the American spirit.
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Restored my hope that American can again be great!
- By Greg on 07-31-12
By: Ronald Reagan
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A Godly Hero
- The Life of William Jennings Bryan
- By: Michael Kazin
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Politician, evangelist, and reformer William Jennings Bryan was the most popular public speaker of his time. In this acclaimed biography - the first major reconsideration of Bryan's life in 40 years - award-winning historian Michael Kazin illuminates his astonishing career and the richly diverse and volatile landscape of religion and politics in which he rose to fame.
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Excellent Bio of Important Figure
- By steve thomas on 03-19-25
By: Michael Kazin
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FDR
- By: Jean Edward Smith
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 32 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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One of today's premier biographers, Jean Edward Smith, has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is a portrait painted in broad strokes and fine details. We see how Roosevelt's restless energy, fierce intellect, personal magnetism, and ability to project effortless grace permitted him to master countless challenges throughout his life. Smith recounts FDR's personal battles and also tackles head-on and in depth the numerous failures and miscues of Roosevelt's political career.
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Interesting but flawed
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-15-13
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Kochland
- The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America
- By: Christopher Leonard
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Just as Steve Coll told the story of globalization through ExxonMobil and Andrew Ross Sorkin told the story of Wall Street excess through Too Big to Fail, Christopher Leonard’s Kochland uses the extraordinary account of how the biggest private company in the world grew to be that big to tell the story of modern corporate America.
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An anti-capitalism treatise
- By Luis on 10-01-19
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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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The Fifties
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the 10 years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower, Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon; but also of Harley Earl, who put fins on cars; Dick and Mac McDonald and Ray Kroc, who mass-produced the American hamburger; Kemmons Wilson, who placed his Holiday Inns along the nation's roadsides; and more.
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one of the very best
- By Chester Chellman on 09-25-18
By: David Halberstam
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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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Hitler
- A Biography
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 46 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in the 20th century.
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An Excellent Read
- By Rodney on 09-19-13
By: Ian Kershaw
Very strong finish to this 4-volume series
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they bleep out a bunch of words
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Exemplary and Informative
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essential
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70s politics
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good book
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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.
Great but held back by the actual history
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Fascinating Looking Glass
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Excellent
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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.
Brilliant
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