2008-04-11 Brilliant exploration of Reagan's achievements

This illuminating work re-evaluates the presidency of Ronald Reagan with the benefit of hindsight. In the Prologue: The Wise Men and the Dummy, the author shows how wrong all the experts were about the Soviet Union for example, and how right Ronald Reagan was. When the most powerful empire in history quite soon imploded, Reagan's prophecies came true. It was the same with the economy.

In chapter 1: Why Reagan Gets No Respect, D'Souza looks at the Reagan enigma, the harsh criticism of the pundits and the secret of Reagan's success. It reveals a complex figure, a distinctive personality of a man larger than life. In chapter 2: The Education Of An Actor, the author considers Reagan's childhood, his career as an actor, first steps in politics and the way life prepared him for the presidency.

Chapter 3: Reagan Goes To Washington, discusses his political career from 1964 to 1980. The part on how he confronted the counterculture chaos as governor of California makes for riveting reading. In the chapter A Walk On The Supply Side, the difficult year of 1982 is discussed, a year in which the economic prospects looked bleak. Reagan however, stayed the course and carried the country with his optimism.

The next year, 1983, saw the beginning of a 7-year period of uninterrupted growth. The recovery took Reagan's critics by surprise, and that's when they ceased calling it Reaganomics. Contrary to popular myth, the 1980s was also a decade of great generosity, which saw a real increase of 57 per cent in charitable giving, from about 65 billion dollars in 1980 to 100 billion in 1990. In this period America became more prosperous, more innovative and more technologically advanced than Japan or Europe.

The following chapters: Confronting The Evil Empire, Making The World Safe For Democracy and The Wall Came Tumbling Down investigate how Reagan foresaw the collapse of communism, how he planned it and how he brought it about. D'Souza points out how the intellectual eggheads got it wrong and Reagan got it right once again. Here also the events in Grenada, Afghanistan and Nicaragua are discussed. Against the odds, the Reagan administration achieved a remarkable turnaround and a massive worldwide advance towards the concept of democracy for all. The role of Margaret Thatcher and the Pope are also dealt with, and these chapters include information on SDI (the space shield or star wars as it was also called).

In the Man Behind The Mask, D'Souza considers the paradoxes in Reagan's life, for example his personal faith, his non-attendance of church and his sardonic view of organized religion. His wit, humour and tolerance of human failings went hand in hand with an objective standard of truth and virtue. Spirit Of A Leader looks at his leadership style and qualities and how he shifted the political centre by changing the terms of the debate. This is measured in the way his opponents adopted his rhetoric and his objectives.

Epilogue: The Road Not Taken is a rather glum indictment of the route that America took from 1989 to 1996, in which D'Souza takes the GOP leadership and conservative intellectuals to task. This book was published in 1997 so perhaps Mr D'Souza might want to get out a new edition with a more positive postscript. Well researched, the book concludes with copious notes and a though index.

Together with Peggy Noonan's book When Character Was King I found this to be the best book on Reagan. He revived the American Spirit, won the Cold War and made the world safer for democracy. And he had a good influence on me in the 1980s when I happened to be a gaunt youth with a gloomy, gothic outlook on life. To learn more about this great man, listen to his speeches on the 5-CD set Speaking My Mind, or read the book Dear Americans: Letters From the Desk Of Ronald Reagan.