From best-selling biographer Max Boot comes this revelatory portrait, a decade in the making, of the actor-turned-politician whose telegenic leadership ushered in a transformative conservative era in American politics. Despite his fame as a Hollywood star and television host, Reagan remained a man of profound contradictions, even to those closest to him. Never resorting to either hagiography or hit job, Reagan: His Life and Legend charts his epic journey from Depression-era America to “Morning in America.” Providing fresh insight into “trickle-down economics,” the Cold War’s end, the Iran-Contra affair, and so much more, this definitive biography is as compelling a presidential biography as any in recent decades.
Max Boot is a Russia-born naturalized American historian and foreign-policy analyst and a senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has worked as a writer and editor at the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Weekly Standard, and the Christian Science Monitor, and is now a regular columnist for the Washington Post. His New York Times bestseller, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography. He is also the author of The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, and, controversially, of The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right. His new book is Reagan: His Life and Legend.
Shermer and Boot discuss:
- What led him to undertake this biography
- How to write a biography—with sources, and which to consider as reliable
- Early influences on Reagan’s life: family, Midwestern upbringing, education, teachers, mentors, experiences.
- Relative influence of genes, environment, and luck.
- The Lifeguard
- Depression economics influences
- Reagan’s attitudes and beliefs on social issues reflecting those of his generation
- Radio and Acting
- President of the Screen Actor’s Guild and his purported role in preventing a Communist takeover of Hollywood.
- GE pitch man
- A groundbreaking look at why Reagan left the Democratic Party, showing his reliance on conspiracy-mongering tracts, fake quotes, and statistics—and the influence of both the FBI and General Electric.
- Revelations about the role of “white backlash” politics in Reagan’s rise.
- California governor
- 1968 Presidential campaign
- 1976 Presidential campaign
- Goldwater and the state of the Republican Party when Reagan entered politics
- New evidence about the “October Surprise” and the involvement of Reagan’s aides in political skullduggery prior to the 1980 election
- Arthur Laffer and Trickledown economics
- Budget deficit
- AIDS epidemic
- Iran-Contra
- Abortion
- “Evil Empire”
- Gorbachev Geneva summit
- Gorbachev Reykjavik summit
- Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI/Star Wars)
- Reagan on nuclear weapons
- Rancho del Cielo
- An examination of how Reagan was both different from—and similar to—Donald Trump
- Hotspots: N Korea, Iran, Israel, China.
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.
This episode was released on October 1, 2024.
