"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Decades before Alzheimer's clouded Reagan's mind, he showed a terrifying lack of human presence. "I was real proud when Dad came to my high school commencement", reports his son, Michael Reagan. After posing for photos with Michael and his classmates, the future president came up to him, looking right in his eyes, and said, "Hi, my name's Ronald Reagan. What's yours?" Poor Michael replied, "Dad, it's me. Your son. Mike."
Despite deep research and unprecedented access--no previous biography has ever been authorised by a sitting president--Morris could get no closer to Reagan's elusive soul than his children could. So he decided to dramatise Reagan's life with several invented characters--including a fictionalised version of himself witnessing scenes in Reagan's life that happened before Morris was born and an imaginary gossip columnist who makes wicked comments on Reagan's career. This is a strange tactic, forcing one constantly to consult the footnotes at the back to sort things out and Morris makes it tougher by presenting his invented characters as real even in the footnotes.
Ultimately, the hubbub over Morris's odd method is beside the point. His fictionalising is rooted in Bob Woodward-like research, and his speculative entry into Reagan's life and mind is plausible, dramatic, literary and lit by dazzling flashes of insight. We cannot verify Morris's notion that Reagan probably approved the illegal Iran-Contra funding without having a clue it was illegal, or that the "Star Wars" program sprang from Reagan's role as Brass Bancroft, who used an Inertia Projector to zap bad guys, and his love of Edgar Rice Burroughs' first novel Princess of Mars, which featured glass-domed cities. But however bizarre and ignorant his thoughts were, however cold his heart, the man did crush the "Evil Empire" and, in Morris' opinion, achieve greatness. Morris's book is as bizarre as its subject but he achieves greatness too. --Tim Appelo
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 0394555082-11-12561897
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. COMPELLING: RICH: PENETRATING: PERCEPTIVE: NEW Stated First Edition hardcover (orig. September 1999), NEW unclipped mylar-protected jacket showing orig. $35.00 price on right-front inside flyleaf, NEW handsomely illustrated cover w/ sharp NEW edges & corners & navy-blue linen wrapping spine & extending 1.46" onto front & back panels covered in navy blue paper w/ titles handsomely silver-stamped on spine, IMMACULATE text-block exterior w/ smooth-cut top & bottom edges & cut-page-style deckle side-edging, NEW sewn binding w/ tight signatures & crimson & white-checked cloth bands at spine-caps, IMPECCABLE cream-white end-papers on EXCELLENT rag paper, PRISTINE interior handsomely printed on SUPERB unblemished silk-finish paper * 82 superb b-w illus. throughout the text * Prologue (xi) Epilogue (655) Appendix (673) Acknowledgments (675) Bibliography (679) Notes (683) Illustrations (839) Index (843) * 6.46" x 9.46" x 1.76", 0.78 kg, xx+874 (894) pp. * This book, the only biography ever authorized by a sitting President (yet written w/ complete interpretive freedom) is as revolutionary in method as it is formidable in scholarship. When Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in 1981, Edmund Morris, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Theodore Roosevelt, was among his 1st literary guests. Morris developed a fascination for the genial yet inscrutable President &, after Reagan's landslide reelection in 1984, put aside the 2nd volume of his life of Roosevelt to become an observing eye & ear at the White House. Coming & going w/ Reagan's benign approval ("I'm not going to ride up San Juan Hill for you"), Morris found the President to be a man of extraordinary power & mystery. Although the historic early achievements were plain to see (the restoration of American optimism & patriotism, revival of the national economy, a massive arms buildup deliberately forcing the "Evil Empire" of Soviet Communism to come to terms), nobody, let alone Reagan himself, could explain how he succeeded in shaping events to his will. And when Reagan's 2nd term came to grips w/ some of the most fundamental moral issues of the late 20th century (at Bitburg & Bergen-Belsen, at Geneva & Reykjavík, publicly outside the Brandenburg Gate ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"), & deep within the mother monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church, Morris realized that he had taken on a subject of epic dimensions. Thus began a long biographical pilgrimage to the heart of Ronald Reagan's mystery, beginning w/ his birth in 1911 in the heart of rural Illinois (where he is still remembered as "Dutch," the dreamy son of an alcoholic father & a fiercely religious mother) & progressing through the way stations of an amazingly varied career: young lifeguard (he saved 77 lives), aspiring writer, ace sportscaster, film star, soldier, union leader, corporate spokesman, Governor, & President. Reagan granted Morris full access to his personal papers, including early autobiographical stories & a handwritten White House diary. The pilgrimage climaxes in 1993, when, in a moment of aching poignancy, Morris escorts his aged & failing subject back up the stairs of his birthplace. "An odd, Dantesque reversal of roles had occurred, as if I were now the leader rather than the led." During 13 years of obsessive archival research & interviews w/ Reagan & his family, friends, admirers & enemies (the book's enormous dramatis personae includes such varied characters as Mikhail Gorbachev, Michelangelo Antonioni, Elie Wiesel, Mario Savio, François Mitterrand, Grant Wood, & Zippy the Pinhead), Morris lived a doppelgänger life, studying the young "Dutch," the middle-aged "Ronnie," & the septuagenarian Chief Executive w dispassionate closeness, not to mention alternations of amusement, horror & amazed respect unmatched by any other presidential biographer. Edmund Morris' literary genius & his unique access to his subject here forges a new, compelling & richly rewarding eyewitness style of biography. Seller Inventory # 010167
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Book Description Thick Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. First Edition; First Printing. Book and DJ New. NO notes, names or ANY markings. New DJ not clipped ($35) ; Ships in a box, USA. ; Photos; Thick 8vo; 874 pages. Seller Inventory # 47250
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First Edition. This book, the only biography ever authorized by a sitting President--yet written with complete interpretative freedom--is as revolutionary in method as it is formidable in scholarship. During thirteen years of obsessive archival research and interviews with Reagan and his family, friends, admirers and enemies, Morris lived what amounted to a 'doppelganger' life, studying the young "Dutch", the middle-aged Cold Warrior, and the septuagenarian Chief Executive with a closeness and dispassion, not to mention alternations of amusement, horror, and amazed respect, unmatched by any other presidential biographer. New, unread copy, in fine, mylar-protected dust jacket. 874 pp. BIOS1/A27/A58. Seller Inventory # 6715
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0394555082