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73
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
88/100Critics
37/100Scholars
93/100Author:
Rick Perlstein
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster
Date:
August 18, 2020
Rick Perlstein's final entry in his political trilogy connects the activities and influence of today's conservative movement to a deliberate shift toward right-wing policies that began during the Carter administration and led to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
What The Reviewers Say
... absorbing.
The book concludes the series, providing continuity with the previous entries, but it will also be met by an audience that is living daily in Trumpland, an experience bound to shape their sense of conservatism’s impulses and effects.
A hallmark of Perlstein’s work is his blending of political and cultural history, often a tricky balance.
Reaganland detonates revelatory pop-ups...throughout its narrative. Taken together, they illuminate an era that remains a dreary, hectic blur to those who lived through it. As with the best popular histories (an undervalued subgenre, even with such widely acknowledged masters of the form as Barbara Tuchman and William Manchester), Perlstein’s book not only rolls out its sequence of events but also evokes their emotional impact, whether it was shock, incredulity, or delight. No dots go unconnected in his American tableaux, in which the popularity of movies like 1977’s Star Wars and 1978’s Superman contribute as much to the country’s enchantment with rousing triumphalism as the US hockey team’s 'Miracle on Ice' upset over the USSR in the 1980 Winter Olympics. Nothing seems left out.
