The Age of Reagan

Starred review from February 4, 2008
Distinguished Princeton historian Wilentz—winner of a Bancroft Prize for The Rise of American Democracy
—makes an eloquent and compelling case for America's Right as the defining factor shaping the country's political history over the past 35 years.
Wilentz argues that the unproductive liberalism of the Carter years was a momentary pause in a general tidal surge toward a new politics of conservatism defined largely by the philosophy and style of Ronald Reagan. Even Bill Clinton, he shows, tacitly admitted the ascendance of many Reaganesque core values in the American mind by styling himself as a centrist “New Democrat” and moving himself and his party to the right.
Wilentz postulates Reagan as the perfect man at the ideal moment, not just ruling his eight years in the White House, but also casting a long shadow on all that followed (a shadow, one might add, still being felt in the Republican presidential campaign today). While examining in detail the low points of Reagan's presidency, from Iran-Contra to his initial belligerence toward the Soviet Union, Wilentz concludes in his superb account that Reagan must be considered one of the great presidents: he reshaped the geopolitical map of the world as well as the American judiciary and bureaucracy, and uplifted an American public disheartened by Vietnam and the grim Carter years. While much has been written by Reagan admirers, Wilentz says, “his achievement looks much more substantial than anything the Reagan mythmakers have said in his honor.” 16 pages of b&w photos.