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When I saw the press hype over this new Reaganland book, I thought to myself, what wonderfully serendipitous timing—I've had this nagging urge to learn more about the history of the Reagan era, and everyone says this book is really good, so I'll pick it up and find out more!
The book starts off in 1976, which is sensible enough—gotta establish the background before getting to Reagan!—and then I kept reading, and reading, and... then somehow I was still in 1976, even though my ereader told me I was 20% of the way into the book, and I thought, what the hell.
...so, yeah, that was the first time I clicked back to notice (1) the book's subtitle, which makes it abundantly clear this is about the run-up to Reagan's election, not Reagan's presidency, and (2) dear GOD this thing is over a thousand pages long.
("Lua do you just download ebooks compulsively without even checking the most basic information about them—" YES, OKAY, I KNOW I HAVE A PROBLEM)
Anyway, at that point I felt kinda committed, and was having a good enough time, so I finished reading the thing anyway. I still have no idea what the 80s were like, but learning all about the Carter administration (like... the entire Carter administration... this history is narrow in scope but incredibly comprehensive; I feel like it covered literally every national politics thing within that four-year timespan), and Reagan's rise to prominence, was plenty interesting all on its own.
The first half, in particular, was full of really interesting and new-to-me-stuff—I didn't really know much about Carter outside of "kinda unpopular president," so it was really fascinating to see such the Obama-esque energy and enthusiasm when the guy got elected, the dude's lovably-weird approach to the presidency, and the beginnings of the US's neoliberal economic turn (which Reagan accelerated, but like, Carter's the one who put Volcker in as chair of the fed, etc).
The latter half of the book starts getting into the nitty-gritty of Carter and Reagan's respective campaign trails, and thus starts to drag, with endless recountings of "and then the Reagan campaign did this one political gaffe, and then the Carter campaign did this other political gaffe, and then the Reagan campaign did a different gaffe," on and on and oh my God maybe this sort of thing is unavoidable in a political history but it's just so boring.
ANYWAY. It's been a few months since I finished reading this one, so my memory's probably fuzzy on some of the finer details, but here's some high-level highlights:
( Read more... )
The book starts off in 1976, which is sensible enough—gotta establish the background before getting to Reagan!—and then I kept reading, and reading, and... then somehow I was still in 1976, even though my ereader told me I was 20% of the way into the book, and I thought, what the hell.
...so, yeah, that was the first time I clicked back to notice (1) the book's subtitle, which makes it abundantly clear this is about the run-up to Reagan's election, not Reagan's presidency, and (2) dear GOD this thing is over a thousand pages long.
("Lua do you just download ebooks compulsively without even checking the most basic information about them—" YES, OKAY, I KNOW I HAVE A PROBLEM)
Anyway, at that point I felt kinda committed, and was having a good enough time, so I finished reading the thing anyway. I still have no idea what the 80s were like, but learning all about the Carter administration (like... the entire Carter administration... this history is narrow in scope but incredibly comprehensive; I feel like it covered literally every national politics thing within that four-year timespan), and Reagan's rise to prominence, was plenty interesting all on its own.
The first half, in particular, was full of really interesting and new-to-me-stuff—I didn't really know much about Carter outside of "kinda unpopular president," so it was really fascinating to see such the Obama-esque energy and enthusiasm when the guy got elected, the dude's lovably-weird approach to the presidency, and the beginnings of the US's neoliberal economic turn (which Reagan accelerated, but like, Carter's the one who put Volcker in as chair of the fed, etc).
The latter half of the book starts getting into the nitty-gritty of Carter and Reagan's respective campaign trails, and thus starts to drag, with endless recountings of "and then the Reagan campaign did this one political gaffe, and then the Carter campaign did this other political gaffe, and then the Reagan campaign did a different gaffe," on and on and oh my God maybe this sort of thing is unavoidable in a political history but it's just so boring.
ANYWAY. It's been a few months since I finished reading this one, so my memory's probably fuzzy on some of the finer details, but here's some high-level highlights:
( Read more... )
