Forty years have passed since Ronald Reagan, the dominant figure of 20th-century American conservatism, waged his final campaign for the presidency. Reagan’s landslide reelection in 1984 affirmed his stature as a political force, and his legacy continues to resonate as Americans navigate another important election year. With that in mind, “Reagan,” Max Boot’s new biography of the 40th president, couldn’t be more timely.
Timing was obviously much on his mind as Boot, a historian, foreign policy analyst, Washington Post columnist, and former Christian Science Monitor staffer, worked on this ambitious account of Reagan’s life. Reagan occupied the White House from 1981 to 1989, and a dwindling number of his administration’s key figures are still around. Boot managed to interview quite a few, and “Reagan” could very well be the last biography of its kind to draw on so many personal conversations with key primary sources.
In his introduction, Boot laments that while much has been written about Reagan, “there is still no definitive biography.” Given the scope of his research, which also uses extensive archival material, the author clearly wanted to leave no stone unturned. Is “Reagan” definitive? Perhaps that ideal will remain elusive, since Reagan, who died at 93 in 2004, was famously hard to define.
He had almost no close friends, and his only abiding confidant, apparently, was his wife, Nancy. “One of his closest aides, Michael K. Deaver, confessed, �.
