
Reaganland
America's Right Turn 1976-1980
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Narrated by:
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Samantha Desz
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Jonathan Todd Ross
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Jacques Roy
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Gabra Zackman
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By:
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Rick Perlstein
About this listen
A New York Times notable book of 2020
From the best-selling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power.
Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga's final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement.
In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford's defeat, too old to make another run. His comeback was fueled by an extraordinary confluence: fundamentalist preachers and former segregationists reinventing themselves as militant crusaders against gay rights and feminism; business executives uniting against regulation in an era of economic decline; a cadre of secretive "New Right" organizers deploying state-of-the-art technology, bending political norms to the breaking point - and Reagan's own unbending optimism, his ability to convey unshakable confidence in America as the world's "shining city on a hill". Meanwhile, a civil war broke out in the Democratic party. When President Jimmy Carter called Americans to a new ethic of austerity, Senator Ted Kennedy reacted with horror, challenging him for reelection. Carter's Oval Office tenure was further imperiled by the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, near-catastrophe at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant, aviation accidents, serial killers on the loose, and endless gas lines.
Backed by a reenergized conservative Republican base, Reagan ran on the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" - and prevailed. Reaganland is the story of how that happened, tracing conservatives' cutthroat strategies to gain power and explaining why they endure four decades later.
©2020 Eric S. Perlstein. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.
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The moral complexity of a comic book
- By Tot on 02-22-19
By: David Remnick
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The Money Kings
- The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America
- By: Daniel Schulman
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Joseph Seligman arrived in the United States in 1837, with the equivalent of $100 sewn into the lining of his pants. Then came the Lehman brothers, who would open a general store in Montgomery, Alabama. Not far behind were Solomon Loeb and Marcus Goldman, among the “Forty-Eighters” fleeing a Germany that had relegated Jews to an underclass.
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perfect context for issues of antisemitism & money
- By Marjorie on 04-01-24
By: Daniel Schulman
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Rush
- Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father
- By: Stephen Fried
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time he was 30, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé, and become John Adams’s confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general. And as with the greatest Revolutionary minds, Rush was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment.
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The narration problem can be corrected
- By Sandra L. on 09-27-18
By: Stephen Fried
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The Warburgs
- The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Jonathan Reese
- Length: 35 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Bankers, philanthropists, scholars, socialites, artists, and politicians, the Warburgs stood at the pinnacle of German (and, later, German American) Jewry. They forged economic dynasties, built mansions and estates, assembled libraries, endowed charities, and advised a German kaiser and two American presidents. But their very success made the Warburgs lightning rods for anti-Semitism, and their sense of patriotism became increasingly dangerous in a Germany that had declared Jews the enemy.
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The Warburg's Dynamic Family History
- By Darwin8u on 10-22-18
By: Ron Chernow
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Accidental Presidents
- Eight Men Who Changed America
- By: Jared Cohen
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Accidental Presidents looks at eight men who came to the office without being elected to it. It demonstrates how the character of the man in that powerful seat affects the nation and world.
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LOVE LOVE LOVE this book
- By Samuel Stephen Ross on 05-03-19
By: Jared Cohen
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Veritas
- A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star religion professor at Harvard, announced a breathtaking discovery just steps from the Vatican: she’d found an ancient scrap of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene “my wife”. The mysterious manuscript, which King provocatively titled “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”, had the power to topple the Roman Catholic Church. It threatened not just the all-male priesthood, but centuries of sacred teachings on marriage, sex, and women’s leadership, much of it premised on the hallowed tradition of a celibate Jesus.
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Wow
- By Dorothy on 08-23-20
By: Ariel Sabar
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Robert E. Lee
- A Life
- By: Allen C. Guelzo
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In Robert E. Lee, the award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general, following him from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.
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Unfortunately falls into judging Lee like CNN
- By Jeff B on 11-08-21
By: Allen C. Guelzo
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Showdown
- Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America
- By: Wil Haygood
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Thurgood Marshall brought down the separate-but-equal doctrine, integrated schools, and not only fought for human rights and human dignity but also made them impossible to deny in the courts and in the streets. In this stunning new biography, award-winning author Wil Haygood surpasses the emotional impact of his inspiring best seller The Butler to detail the life and career of one of the most transformative legal minds of the past 100 years.
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Haygood is master of the ticktock narrative
- By Jean on 12-12-15
By: Wil Haygood
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Our First Civil War
- Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Steve Hendrickson
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? What prompts their neighbors, hardly distinguishable in station or success, to defend that country against the rebels? That is the question H. W. Brands answers in his powerful new history of the American Revolution.
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Not a fresh take on the Revolution
- By James on 01-05-22
By: H. W. Brands
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Church of Spies
- The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler
- By: Mark Riebling
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The Vatican's silence in the face of Nazi atrocities remains one of the great controversies of our time. History has accused wartime pontiff Pius the Twelfth of complicity in the Holocaust and dubbed him "Hitler's Pope". But a key part of the story has remained untold. Pius ran the world's largest church, smallest state, and oldest spy service. Saintly but secretive, he skimmed from church charities to pay covert couriers, and surreptitiously tape-recorded his meetings with top Nazis.
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Pius XII Vindicated
- By James Clark on 04-17-16
By: Mark Riebling
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Sowing Crisis
- The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East
- By: Rashid Khalidi
- Narrated by: Ray Grover
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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During the 45 years of the Cold War, policymakers from the US and the Soviet Union vied for primacy in the Middle East. Their motives, long held by historians to have had an ideological thrust, were, in fact, to gain control over access to oil and claim geographic and strategic advantage. In his new audiobook, Rashid Khalidi, considered the foremost US historian of the Middle East, makes the compelling case that the dynamics that played out during the Cold War continue to exert a profound influence even decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
By: Rashid Khalidi
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On Great Fields
- The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
- By: Ronald C. White
- Narrated by: Ronald C. White
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Before 1862, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had rarely left his home state of Maine, where he was a trained minister and mild-mannered professor at Bowdoin College. His colleagues were shocked when he volunteered for the Union army, but he was undeterred and later became known as one of the North’s greatest heroes: On the second day at Gettysburg, after running out of ammunition at Little Round Top, he ordered his men to wield their bayonets in a desperate charge down a rocky slope that routed the Confederate attackers.
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Unknown facts on a Maine and Civil War hero. Very well written
- By Uncle Techy on 04-20-24
By: Ronald C. White
What listeners say about Reaganland
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- RH
- 01-13-22
Very strong finish to this 4-volume series
Riveting and informative. I think the weakest of this series was the third volume, although it was overall quite good. This last volume was excellent--a sobering examination of how Reagan won the 1980 election. There were multiple readers, all very good.
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- Katherine Stefan
- 12-08-21
they bleep out a bunch of words
this is one of the best books I've read. however, some of these politicians said bad things, and instead of showing this they bleep it out
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2 people found this helpful
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- Peter
- 01-26-21
Great but held back by the actual history
Another great entry but not quite as good as the previous entries of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge, largely because the scope of the story focuses so much on the cultural war issues of busing, LBGTQ rights, and abortion.
This is no fault of the author as it is simply reporting on the decisive issues of the day, but such issues are (and remain) much more morally draining to listen to than the other issues outlined in previous books (Vietnam vets infighting, the gold standard, price controls, the Moonies, labor unions, Watergate Babies, the ERA, the and more).
Best highlights: The rise and fall of the consumer protection movement, the consistent misfunctionings of the "Georgia Mafia" under Carter and their conflicts with fellow Democratic compatriots, and the in-depth look at Jimmy Carter's soul-searching and media disappearance that pre-empted the infamous "Crisis of Confidence" speech.
Least great highlights: Ronald Regan himself is actually quite boring. He appears to be a fairly vapid individual blessed with charisma and divine mission to be the vector of the conservative right. In practice, he ended up riding the tide more than causing the tide it appears.
Overall, this was good, but I reckon Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge were both better, with The Invisible Bridge being my favorite in the series that started with Before the Storm (which I have not read). Your mileage may vary.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Tyson Lindley
- 12-06-22
Fascinating Looking Glass
It’s much easier to understand how we arrive at our current state after listening to this. Excellent deep dive.
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- Kindle Customer
- 04-25-23
Excellent
Just filling in the blanks of my youth. I was living in Hawaii and in the Navy. Seems I missed a lot. This is an excellent history and fits with what I remembered. I voted for John Anderson too.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-04-24
good book
I disliked that they used two seperate narrators. both were good, but it was jarring to go back and forth.
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- Joshua
- 04-06-21
Exemplary and Informative
So much of this story has never been told, and this book tells it in an engaging fashion.
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- jeff lewis
- 10-25-21
essential
once again, essential reading for understanding the world today. Perlstein's fly on the wall history let's you feel right in the moment
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- NYC Reader
- 02-03-22
70s politics
This book told the story of the politics of the 1970s. The main story was the 1980 election. I liked the diversity and the parts of the events of the 70s.
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- Tad Davis
- 10-27-20
Brilliant
Ronald Reagan doesn’t come off well in this book, to put it mildly. It’s hard to take him seriously as a hero, politician, or President after reading it. His intellectual grasp of issues was limited, and his view of the world was simplistic and schematic. Yes, he was a great storyteller, but as it turns out many of the stories he told, even about himself, were badly remembered or simply made up.
He’s not the only one who comes off badly. I’ve been a big fan of Jimmy Carter all my life, but Perlstein’s account of his Presidency has forced me to rethink much of that. One of his most frequent blunders, according to Perlstein, was going public with a policy without consulting any of the Democrats in Congress first — finding out only after the fact that most of them were opposed. Or, flipping the coin, suddenly abandoning a policy after finally getting Congressional leaders to get behind it — and letting them find out about his change of mind from the news media. Carter’s administration did not play well with others.
It was a turning point in American politics, a period when opposing sides on various issues — from taxes to gay rights — hardened into moral crusades. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, and the NRA all date their growing national influence to this period. Perlstein’s brilliance as a reporter is to go deeply into well-researched and meticulously documented detail and yet still maintain the momentum of the overall narrative. I’ve read the other three books in this series, and now I want to read them all again.
There are four narrators, one for each year — 1977-1980 — each year being a separate section in the book. All are good, and the variety helped, given the length and the detail of the narrative.
As someone who lived and voted his way through this period, I can say with conviction: if you want to know what it was like — or you want to be reminded what it was like — read this book. Better still, read all four books in the series: you will come away with a better understanding of American conservatism and the people who have made it such a dominant force in our national life in the 21st century.
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13 people found this helpful