The great storyteller’s story
An excellent new life of America’s 40th president, who died in 2004
Reagan: The Life. By H.W. Brands. Doubleday; 805 pages; $35.
MORE than a decade after his death, Ronald Reagan still divides people. American conservatives revere him as practically a demigod. He shrank the state, rescued the economy and won the cold war; all Republican candidates must pay homage. The left dismisses him as malign and moronic—a B-movie actor who floated into the White House on an updraft of phoney charm, a man who snoozed during meetings, blew up the deficit and propped up unsavoury third-world despots from Argentina to Zaire.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "The great storyteller’s story"
From the May 2nd 2015 edition
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