John Patrick Diggins

Ronald Reagan

Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History

An important reassessment of the fortieth president, placing him in the pantheon with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

In this bold, revisionist biography, distinguished historian John Patrick Diggins shows that Ronald Reagan, in his distrust of big government, his pursuit of libertarian ideals, and his negotiations with Gorbachev, was a far more active and sophisticated president than we previously knew. Affirming the fortieth president to be an exemplar of the truest conservative values, Diggins “identifies Reagan as the ‘Emersonian President,’ who believed that power is best when it resides in people, not government” (Library Journal).

“Diggins’s ability to glimpse Reagan’s contradictions clearly ... leaves his subject at once more legible and more mysterious.”—The Atlantic

“A significant book. ... Diggins holds that Reagan needs serious attention from intellectual historians.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Diggins does a superb job of tracing Reagan’s intellectual development from old school New Dealer to thoughtful, Emersonian libertarian, and also firmly establishes Reagan’s credentials as a major architect of communism’s final collapse.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

John Patrick Diggins is the author of The Rise and Fall of the American Left and The Proud Decades: 1941–1960, in addition to biographies of John Adams and Max Weber. He is a distinguished professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He lives in New York City.