Thirty-six years after the end of his presidency, 20 after his death, Ronald Reagan still looms large in the national imagination. Americans across the political spectrum view him as a transformative leader who revived the nation and defined an era. Most Republicans revere him as the most unambiguously successful, unambiguously conservative recent president. Even his contemporary critics, whether progressives or populists, who disdain some of his policies—such as free markets, free trade, democracy promotion, and a muscular foreign policy—still regard him as a formidable leader.  

In the past quarter-century, excellent monographs have explored Reagan’s thought, politics, and policies. Paul Kengor, for example, has produced books on Reagan’s spiritual life, anti-Communism, and Cold War strategy, and has an important one forthcoming on Reagan and race. John Patrick Diggins situated Reagan as a transformative historical figure in Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History (2007). Henry Olsen wrote a perceptive study of Reagan’s economic policies in The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return