Includes bibliographical references (pages 737-801) and index.

Prologue: Mourning in America -- Introduction: The pragmatist -- Act I: Small-town boy. Main Street ; "The sunny side's the only side" ; "A good, clean town" -- The lifeguard -- 'Neath the elms ; The New Dealer ; Radio days -- Act II: Actor. Hayseed in Hollywood ; The white knight ; The A list ; Fort Wacky ; The strike ; The blacklist ; The divorce ; The winning team ; "Progress is our most important product" ; Family values -- Act III: "Citizen politician". The right man ; The speech ; The friends of Ronald Reagan ; The backlash candidate ; The amateur ; The moderate ; The "homosexual" ring ; The forgotten campaign ; Battles in Berkeley ; A quieter term ; The primary gambit ; "I shall rise and fight again" ; The Santa Claus campaign ; Sears agonistes ; What it took -- Act IV: Mr. President. Assembling an administration ; In the White House ; Finest hour ; "The whip hand" ; "Vacation!" ; The Cold War heats up ; The Reagan doctrine ; The fairness issue ; The ash heap of history ; Allies--and aides--at war ; The year of living dangerously ; The thrill of victory . . . and the agony of defeat -- The have and have-nots -- "Don't screw up": the 1984 campaign ; Hail to the Chief (of Staff) ; Despotism and terrorism ; The surprise summit ; "A dark and hurtful time" ; Culture wars ; Tear down this wall -- Act V: Ex-president. Fadeout.

"Son of the Midwest, movie star, and mesmerizing politician--America's fortieth president comes to three-dimensional life in this gripping and profoundly revisionist biography. In this "monumental and impressive" biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president's aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot provides "the best biography of Ronald Reagan to date" (Robert Mann). The story begins not in star-studded Hollywood but in the cradle of the Midwest, small-town Illinois, where Reagan was born in 1911 to Nelle Clyde Wilson, a devoted Disciples of Christ believer, and Jack Reagan, a struggling, alcoholic salesman. Boot vividly creates a portrait of a handsome young man, indeed a much-vaunted lifeguard, whose early successes mirrored those of Horatio Alger. And contextualizing Reagan's life against American history, Boot re-creates the world in which Reagan transitioned from local Iowa sportscaster to budding screen actor. The world of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1950s would prove significant, not only in Reagan's coming-of-age in such classics as Knute Rockne and Kings Row but during the twilight of his film career, when he played opposite a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo, and then his eventual emergence as a television host of General Electric Theater, which established his bona fides as one of the leading conservative voices of the time. Indeed, the leap to California governor in 1966 seemed almost preordained, in which Reagan became a bellwether for a nation in the throes of a generational shift. Reagan's 1980 presidential election augured a shift that continues into this century. Boot writes not as a partisan but as a historian seeking to set the story straight. He explains how Reagan was an ideologue but also a supreme pragmatist who signed pro-abortion and gun control bills as governor, cut deals with Democrats in both Sacramento and Washington, and befriended Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War. A master communicator, Reagan revived America's spirits after the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. But Boot also shows how Reagan was armored in obliviousness. He traces Reagan's opposition to civil rights over forty years, reveals how he neglected the exploding AIDS epidemic, and details how America experienced a level of income inequality not seen since the Gilded Age. With its revelatory insights, Reagan: His Life and Legend is no apologia, depicting a man with a good-versus-evil worldview derived from his moralistic upbringing and Hollywood westerns. Providing fresh examinations of "trickle-down economics," the Cold War's end, the Iran-Contra affair, as well as a nuanced portrait of Reagan's family, this definitive biography is as compelling a presidential biography as any in recent decades."-- Provided by publisher