Morning In America
The Reagan Revolution and the Conservative Ascendancy, 1980-1988By Stephen Leonard Greer
Length6h 31m
About this audiobook
Reagan Revolution history — narrative of the conservative ascendancy, Reaganomics, the Cold War endgame, Iran-Contra, the AIDS crisis, and the political transformation that reshaped America, 1980-1988.
On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan said seven words that announced a governing philosophy: "Government is not the solution to our problem." Sixteen years earlier he had delivered "A Time for Choosing" on behalf of a man losing in a landslide. The journey from that 1964 speech to the presidency was the founding of modern conservatism as a governing ideology — and its consequences, America has been living with ever since.
This Reagan Revolution history traces the conservative ascendancy across twenty-four chapters. Historian Stephen Leonard Greer follows the movement from Goldwater's loss through the coalition Reagan assembled — Falwell's Moral Majority, Heritage Foundation infrastructure — to Reagan's 44-state landslide. The book examines what the revolution delivered: the Economic Recovery Tax Act cutting the top rate from 70 to 50 percent; the PATCO strike; the Evil Empire speech; the Reykjavik summit; and the Iran-Contra affair. Greer also delivers the record admirers prefer not to examine: the AIDS crisis in which Reagan gave no major address until 1987, after more than twenty thousand Americans had died; the 100-to-1 crack sentencing disparity; and the structural deficit that permanently altered American fiscal politics.
Inside this conservative history of the Reagan era:
The road to Reagan — "A Time for Choosing" in 1964, stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis, Viguerie's direct mail operation, and Heritage Foundation's "Mandate for Leadership" distributed to the incoming cabinet (Chapters 1-4)
Reaganomics — the Laffer Curve, Stockman's admission that supply-side was "trickle-down," the deficit rising from 2.7 to 6 percent of GDP, and the 1986 Tax Reform Act driving the top rate to 28 percent (Chapters 5, 7)
Reagan's Cold War — SDI, the Reykjavik summit that nearly produced total nuclear disarmament, and the INF Treaty (Chapters 9, 11-12)
The AIDS crisis — twelve thousand deaths before Reagan mentioned the epidemic publicly in 1985, ACT UP's die-ins at the FDA, and Surgeon General Koop's 1986 report the White House was reluctant to authorize (Chapter 15)
Iran-Contra — North's document shredding, the Tower Commission's finding that Reagan was too detached from his own policy, and the constitutional question about covert operations never adjudicated (Chapter 16)
The Reagan legacy — income inequality through the 1980s, the Cold War's end and the credit Reagan deserves, and the conservative era's consequences four decades on (Chapters 21-24)
In 1980, after stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan's optimism was a genuine resource. Whether the morning he promised arrived — and for whom — is the question this Reagan Revolution history answers with the full weight of evidence from the eight years that followed.
For readers of Rick Perlstein's THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE and Sean Wilentz's THE AGE OF REAGAN.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory, Biography and Memoir
Length6 hrs 31 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2Author’s Note
3Prologue: The City on a Hill
4PART ONE: THE ROAD TO REAGAN (1964-1980)
5Chapter 1: Goldwater's Heir — Reagan's Rise in the Conservative Movement
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 2: The Seventies Crisis — Stagflation, Malaise, and the Carter Years
7Chapter 3: The New Right — Evangelicals, Neoconservatives, and the Coalition
8Chapter 4: The Election of 1980 — Reagan's Landslide and the Conservative Mandate
9PART TWO: REAGANOMICS (1981-1984)
10Chapter 5: Supply-Side Economics — Tax Cuts, Deficits, and the Theory
11Chapter 6: Breaking PATCO — Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and Labor
12Chapter 7: Deregulation — Loosening Government's Hold on the Economy
13Chapter 8: The Recession of 1981-1982 and the Recovery
14PART THREE: REAGAN'S COLD WAR (1981-1989)
15Chapter 9: The Evil Empire — Reagan's Confrontational Cold War Stance
16Chapter 10: The Reagan Doctrine — Arming Anti-Communist Rebels Worldwide
17Chapter 11: SDI — Star Wars, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and Its Impact
18Chapter 12: Gorbachev — The Summit Diplomacy That Helped End the Cold War
19PART FOUR: THE REAGAN DOMESTIC AGENDA
20Chapter 13: Social Conservatism — The Moral Majority and the Culture Wars
21Chapter 14: The War on Drugs — Nancy Reagan, Crack Cocaine, and Just Say No
22Chapter 15: The AIDS Crisis — Reagan's Silence and Its Human Cost
23Chapter 16: Iran-Contra — The Scandal That Almost Brought Down the Presidency
24PART FIVE: THE MAN AND HIS PRESIDENCY
25Chapter 17: Ronald Reagan — Actor, Governor, President
26Chapter 18: The Reagan Style — Communication, Optimism, and the Great Communicator
27Chapter 19: Nancy Reagan — The First Lady's Influence
28Chapter 20: The 1984 Landslide — Morning in America and the Campaign
29PART SIX: LEGACIES
30Chapter 21: The Reagan Revolution — What Changed and What Didn't
31Chapter 22: Income Inequality — The Long Economic Legacy of the Eighties
32Chapter 23: The End of the Cold War — How Much Credit Belongs to Reagan?
33Chapter 24: Reagan's America — The Conservative Era and Its Consequences
34Epilogue: What Reagan Built
35Acknowledgments
36Selected Bibliography
37About the Author
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