History

Biography and Memoir

Morning In America

The Reagan Revolution and the Conservative Ascendancy, 1980-1988By Stephen Leonard Greer

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Length6h 13m

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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.

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Audiobook details

GenreHistory, Biography and Memoir

Length6 hrs 13 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateJun 2, 2026

LanguageEnglish

1Introduction

2Prologue: The City on a Hill

3PART ONE: THE ROAD TO REAGAN (1964-1980)

4Chapter 1: Goldwater's Heir — Reagan's Rise in the Conservative Movement

5Chapter 2: The Seventies Crisis — Stagflation, Malaise, and the Carter Years

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6Chapter 3: The New Right — Evangelicals, Neoconservatives, and the Coalition

7Chapter 4: The Election of 1980 — Reagan's Landslide and the Conservative Mandate

8PART TWO: REAGANOMICS (1981-1984)

9Chapter 5: Supply-Side Economics — Tax Cuts, Deficits, and the Theory

10Chapter 6: Breaking PATCO — Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and Labor

11Chapter 7: Deregulation — Loosening Government's Hold on the Economy

12Chapter 8: The Recession of 1981-1982 and the Recovery

13PART THREE: REAGAN'S COLD WAR (1981-1989)

14Chapter 9: The Evil Empire — Reagan's Confrontational Cold War Stance

15Chapter 10: The Reagan Doctrine — Arming Anti-Communist Rebels Worldwide

16Chapter 11: SDI — Star Wars, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and Its Impact

17Chapter 12: Gorbachev — The Summit Diplomacy That Helped End the Cold War

18PART FOUR: THE REAGAN DOMESTIC AGENDA

19Chapter 13: Social Conservatism — The Moral Majority and the Culture Wars

20Chapter 14: The War on Drugs — Nancy Reagan, Crack Cocaine, and Just Say No

21Chapter 15: The AIDS Crisis — Reagan's Silence and Its Human Cost

22Chapter 16: Iran-Contra — The Scandal That Almost Brought Down the Presidency

23PART FIVE: THE MAN AND HIS PRESIDENCY

24Chapter 17: Ronald Reagan — Actor, Governor, President

25Chapter 18: The Reagan Style — Communication, Optimism, and the Great Communicator

26Chapter 19: Nancy Reagan — The First Lady's Influence

27Chapter 20: The 1984 Landslide — Morning in America and the Campaign

28PART SIX: LEGACIES

29Chapter 21: The Reagan Revolution — What Changed and What Didn't

30Chapter 22: Income Inequality — The Long Economic Legacy of the Eighties

31Chapter 23: The End of the Cold War — How Much Credit Belongs to Reagan?

32Chapter 24: Reagan's America — The Conservative Era and Its Consequences

33Epilogue: What Reagan Built

34Acknowledgments

35Selected Bibliography

36About the Author

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