Reagan

His Life and Legend

20 October 2026

Territory Rights — Worldwide.

Description

America’s fortieth president comes to three-dimensional life in this gripping and profoundly revisionist biography

From best-selling biographer Max Boot comes this revelatory portrait of Ronald Reagan, the actor-turned-politician whose telegenic leadership ushered in a transformative conservative era in American politics. Despite his fame, Reagan remained an enigma even to those closest to him. Believing that this inscrutability contributed to Reagan’s appeal, Max Boot sought to reveal the real man behind the mythology.

Drawing on more than a hundred new interviews and thousands of newly available documents, Reagan tells the epic story of the Depression-era poor boy who transfixed and transformed the nation. Yet Boot, a one-time Republican policy advisor, offers no apologia, depicting a man with a Manichean, good-versus-evil worldview derived from his moralistic upbringing. Providing revelatory insights into “trickle-down economics”, the Cold War’s end, the Iran-Contra affair, and more, this definitive biography is as compelling a presidential biography as any in recent decades.

Reviews

"[I]mpeccably researched and thoroughly compelling..." — Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times

"[D]oggedly researched, deeply readable..." — The Economist

"Intelligent, elegant and engrossing" — Literary Review

"[Reagan] aims to be the definitive biography, and it succeeds. It’s a thoughtful, absorbing account." — The New Yorker

"[A] generous yet sharply perceptive biography" — Peter Conrad, The Observer

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