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Summary
Summary
The bestselling author of Illiberal Education presents a brilliant reassessment of Ronald Reagan, whose leadership and vision transformed a nation.
Author Notes
Dinesh D'Souza was born on April 25, 1961 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. He came to the U.S. in 1978 and attended Union High School in Patagonia, Arizona. He went on to Dartmouth College, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in English in 1983. While attending Dartmouth, he became the editor of a conservative monthly called The Prospect. The paper ignited controversy during D'Souza's editorship by criticizing the College's affirmative action policies. He also became known as a writer for the Dartmouth Review which was subsidized by several right-wing organizations. After Dartmouth he moved to Washington, D.C. where he was an editor of Policy Review, an influential conservative journal. In 1988 he left the magazine on to serve as an advisor in Ronald Regan's White House. He joined the American Enterprise Institute in 1989 where he was the institute's John M. Olin fellow. He has appeared on several news shows as a political commentator such as: CNN, Glen Beck, and ABC's Nightline.
D'Souza's first book, Lliberal Education was published in 1991. Since then, he has written numerous bestselling political commentaries, including: America: Imagine a World Without Her, Obama's America: Unmaking the American Dream, Letters to a Young Conservative, The End of Racism, and The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left.
D'Souza's title's, Hilary's America and Death of a Nation, made the New York Times Bestseller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this political biography of Reagan, D'Souza (Illiberal Education) occasionally slips into hagiology, defending the former president like a zealot shielding a saint's reputation. What saves the author from complete obsequiousness is his ability to gently point out errors in Reagan's personality or politics. Yet those moments are few. For most of the work, D'Souza employs his meticulous research skills to respond to charges against Reagan, claiming that the contemporary prevailing opinion about the Reagan era is a revised, liberal version of events. Calling Reagan "grossly misunderstood," D'Souza sets out to prove that almost everything Reagan did was right, from the invasion of Grenada to supply-side economics. At his best, D'Souza can be a marvelous debate captain, marshaling sources to fortify his viewpoint. At his worst, the author is often in danger of falling prey to revisionism himself. Even when the facts are questionable, D'Souza glosses over his portrait of Reagan, risking hypocrisy to justify and praise. For example, Reagan preached family values and paternal love yet was admittedly cold to his children and sometimes distant to his wife. Conservatives will appreciate the author's loyalty, but those with differing opinions will not be swayed. (Nov.) FYI: This fall also saw publication of Recollections of Reagan: A Portrait of Ronald Reagan edited by Peter Hannaford (Morrow, $24 256p ISBN 0-688-14613-9) and Michael Reagan's The City on a Hill: Fulfilling Ronald Reagan's Vision for America from Thomas Nelson (Forecasts, Aug. 4). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
D'Souza (Illiberal Education, 1991, etc.) breaks with most Reagan administration alumni by idolizing the former president rather than writing a critical kiss-and-tell memoir. Crediting Reagan with doing ``more than any single man in the second half of the twentieth century to shape the world we live in,'' D'Souza presents a straightforward theme: Despite some personal flaws, Reagan was an outstanding statesman and leader. His method is familiar, though less straightforward. By playing off the usual foils--liberals and Democrats, of course, but especially ``pundits'' and ``intellectuals''--he portrays Reagan's career as a series of triumphs over his critics. A master of this style, D'Souza carefully selects quotations that cast aspersions on Reagan and his policies, then demonstrates that time after time the political wise men were wrong and Reagan was right. Focusing on partisan and ideological disputes allows him to avoid potentially embarrassing policy decisions such as the sending of marines to Lebanon, and there are continuing opportunities to disparage favored targets. There is also an odd tendency to document the comments of critics more thoroughly than Reagan's thoughts and intentions. Getting inside Reagan's head undoubtedly poses difficulties, but this is what D'Souza's arguments apparently require. In situations where some observers found Reagan inattentive and obtuse, for example, D'Souza sees ``the guise of being distracted,'' a subtle strategy for managing people. Whether Reagan was being sly or was really asleep would seem to be an important issue, but sorting out such details is not what this effort is all about. Political posturing aside, this is a glib volume that will warm the hearts of those who harbor a nostalgia for the Reagan era. (Author tour; radio satellite tour)
Booklist Review
The reigning Gipper biography is still Lou Cannon's President Reagan: Role of a Lifetime (1991), and D'Souza disavows any biographical purpose for this work. He instead argues that Reagan earned presidential stature comparable with that of Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Even Reaganauts might blanch at that thesis, and they, rather than liberals who viscerally wouldn't give the notion a second's credit, are the conservative D'Souza's audience. Feeling such supporters are "embarrassed" by Reagan, D'Souza builds a case that rests on two improvements in the country associated with Reagan: the ending of both stagflation and the cold war. The associated effects of those meliorations (colossal budget deficits and a controversial foreign policy), D'Souza contends, were the result of Democratic harpies dedicated to spending taxpayers' money and trusting the Soviet Union--a view that should remind partisans why they loved Reagan and loathed Tip O'Neill. As a riposte to the contempt with which most of the media and intellectual class regards Reagan, D'Souza's essay could reinvigorate the fickle faith of Reagan's natural defenders. --Gilbert Taylor
Library Journal Review
A former domestic policy adviser in the Reagan administration and author of the controversial The End of Racism (Free Pr., 1995), D'Souza argues that Reagan was not merely a successful president but "a truly great president who belongs in the elite company of Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt." To make that claim credible, the author ignores the Iran-contra scandal, dismisses the massive budget deficits accumulated during the Reagan years, overlooks a series of missteps by the administration, and simply gets his story wrong (e.g., Reagan's role in the downfall of Ferdinand Marcos). Attempting to show that an ordinary man became an extraordinary leader, D'Souza fails to make a key distinction between "leader" and "president." Reagan was a successful leader who mobilized a conservative movement and reshaped the terms of debate in the United States. He was, however, a less successful president who made a series of mistakes and blunders largely ignored by the author of this disappointing book.Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
