Reagan: An American Journey

Spitz (The Beatles: The Biography) bases this account on extensive interviews and the family papers of Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) to reveal his subject's roles as media master, labor union leader, California governor, and U.S. president. Reagan inherited a love of acting and religiosity from his mother and at least a semblance of gregariousness from his father. According to Spitz, he was resilient, provocative, approachable, and underestimated. As governor, he delegated the tedium of policy transactions to capable colleagues in pursuit of an ever-bigger stage. Although there's some insight into his and wife Nancy's complicated family backgrounds, omissions about Reagan's later life may dismay fastidious historians. Among these exclusions are the long-lasting connections with conservative politician William F. Buckley Jr. In contextualizing Reagan's values as reflective of his small-town, Midwestern roots, Spitz emphasizes the president's lifelong admiration for Franklin D. Roosevelt and dislike of the internecine nuclear weapons race.