Rating: 
Summary: Good writing, bad book.
Review: Mr. Wills is a smart writer who starts his book off comparing what he believes is Mark Twain's America to that of Ronald Reagan's childhood. Wills, in fact, spends a lot of time on Twain's America. The point of this time spent on Twain is to exposed, according to Wills, the imaginary America of Reagan's childhood with that of America plagued with labor and racial strife. Anyone who has spend time reading Twain's Huck Finn knows that the book is a dark portrait of America life, and is not idyllic at all. Although Wills writes well of this period, he doesn't quite pull the trick off, or explain how the memories of childhood can not be happy ones when the outside world may not be so happy. This is a failure of this book. Wills often acts like a hanging Judge stalking someone he obviously despises, yet grudgingly admires. Marshalling his facts to suit himself, he continually points out what he considers flaws in Reagan's character. In doing so, he leaves the readers with a number of false impressions. The most obvious and blatant impression is that Mr. Reagan never enlisted and never served in the Military during World War.
The reality is that three months after Pearl Harbor, Ronald Reagan received a letter from the War Department telling him to report to Fort Mason in San Francisco. He reported to Col. Philip T. Booker and served first as a liaison officer loading convoys. Because Ronald Reagan had terribly poor eyesight, the Military confined him non-combat roles. Later Col. Booker informed Reagan that he had been transferred to Army Air Force Intelligence in Los Angeles. His commanding officer was Gen. Hap Arnold. There he was assigned to make Army Air Force training films and documentaries, and given the rank of second lieutenant. He eventually wound up as adjutant and personal officer for his unit. One of his jobs was to prepare classified films about the progress of the war to be shown to members of the general staff in Washington. Some of these films included Nazi films about their Death Camps. Reagan was eventually promoted to the rank of Captain. From 1942 to 1947, Reagan made only three films for Hollywood. All were made in 1943. The most famous was This is the Army. Many members of the cast of this movie were members of the Armed Services. Reagan himself is listed in it as Lt. Ronald Reagan. Boxer Joe Louis who is also in the film is listed in the cast as Sgt. Joe Louis. You can find the complete cast list at http://imdb.com/title/tt0036430/fullcredits . There you will find listed, at least, 21 members of the Armed Services with roles in this film. This film was made with the co-operation of the Armed Services. Warner Brothers gave all the profits, estimated to be around $10 million, to the Army Emergency Relief. Stallion Road was the first picture Reagan made after the War.
Thousands of people served the War Effort in War World 2. Not everyone enlisted. Thousands served in the U.S. Merchant Marines. Their service was important to the War Effort, so was that of those men and woman who worked in the factories that manufactured the tools that those fighting the war needed in order to win. Their efforts should not be denigrated because they were not on the front fighting the enemy. Their service was as necessary as anyone's. Not everyone is fit for combat roles. Ronald Reagan was one of those but he did serve and was a proud member of the U.S. Army.Why Mr. Wills wants to leave the reader with this provable and false impression one can only guess, but in the name of fairness, one should give someone credit where it is due, and this Mr. Wills fails to do. Another false impression, Mr. Wills leaves the reader with is that Mr. Reagan was not a man of faith. Recently there have been a number of books showing otherwise, as well has Ronald Prescott Reagan's moving tribute to his father's faith at his funeral. For these reasons and many, others this is a bad book.
Rating:
Summary: UNBALANCED VIEW!!
Review: Reading this book was like listening to a liberals campaign speech.The only people who would call this book a balanced view, would be someone who thinks that a tax cut is money that doesn't belong to us.Reagan was the greatest President we ever had but distortions by people like this author would prefer to look at Reagan's achievement with a liberal spin.
Rating:
Summary: Poor historian, sloppy work
Review: This book deviates from being a political biography to find excuses to blame Reagan on various things. The author's logic is often flawed, where he draws conclusions from insufficient information. For example, the author reports various economic conditions from the 80's and erroneously concludes that they were Reagan's fault. Those who want answered questions concerning the cause of the recession (a main reason why I bought the book) are left wondering. Yet, the author makes his (uneducated, in my humble opinion) viewpoint clear when he attributes Carter's "stagflation" to "bad breaks, no doubt," and sites Clinton's tax bracket system as an "accomplishment" for which he receives "little credit. . .The Reagan legacy was still at work." Obviously, these viewpoints are biased since the author gives no explanation as to why this is the case. Some readers may trust the author merely because his words are in print. The book's entire title is Reagan's America, Innocents at Home. I would submit that the people accepting the biased, subjective opinions of this book as facts are the innocents at home to which the author refers.
Rating:
Summary: Poor historian, sloppy work
Review: This book deviates from being a political biography to find excuses to blame Reagan on various things. The author's logic is often flawed, where he draws conclusions from insufficient information. For example, the author reports various economic conditions from the 80's and erroneously concludes that they were Reagan's fault. Those who want answered questions concerning the cause of the recession (a main reason why I bought the book) are left wondering. Yet, the author makes his (uneducated, in my humble opinion) viewpoint clear when he attributes Carter's "stagflation" to "bad breaks, no doubt," and sites Clinton's tax bracket system as an "accomplishment" for which he receives "little credit. . .The Reagan legacy was still at work." Obviously, these viewpoints are biased since the author gives no explanation as to why this is the case. Some readers may trust the author merely because his words are in print. The book's entire title is Reagan's America, Innocents at Home. I would submit that the people accepting the biased, subjective opinions of this book as facts are the innocents at home to which the author refers.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent synopsis of the birth of an era
Review: This is a very valuable effort of outlining the personality of one man as well as the tidings he symbolized and which brought us such ominous phenomena as trickle down economics, the moral majority and catoon politicians of easy hilarity. At times a bit dry and lengthy and overly scholarly about trifles it still educates the lay reader about what forces motivated the ever smiling knucklehead antics of a B movie actor and, more scarily so, how his influence still shapes political discourse and rewards empty suits of lowkey affability to determine what's acceptable and patriotic.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable treatment of the meaning of Reagan the man
Review: Those who criticize Wills for "sloppy work" are off base and clearly have an ax to grind. On the other hand, this book is not a "consummate" piece of work, either. The task of writing a Reagan biography is virtually impossible. Edmund Morris tried to do it and wound up with a botched, absurd, fictionalized mess. Wills doesn't pretend that this book is a biography. It's actually an essay in book-length form (41 short chapters, perhaps a botched attempt at writing 40 chapters to match Reagan's status as 40th president) meditating on specific episodes from Reagan's life, particularly his childhood, adolescence, and initial career as sportscaster, movie star, and Screen Actors Guild president, and the relation of Reagan's life and self-image, and his construction of that image, with the perceptions of America, particularly in connection with the mythmaking of Americans -- their propensity to willfully forget the reality of the American past in order to build a version of the past that serves as a comforting and communal illusion in a time of unprecedented chaos and change. Reagan, Wills explains, is the perfect emblem of that illusion: "The power of his appeal is the great joint confession that we cannot live with our real past, that we not only prefer but need a substitute." Wills' book is not the hatchet job that some make it out to be. He clearly has a respect for Reagan's story, his communicating magic, and his ability as a public figure to unite the American people behind a common purpose, even if that purpose is largely mythical. Nor is the book the testimony to sainthood that many of Reagan's admirers would want. It is clearly critical of Reagan's forgetfulness, his willingness to simplify, his urge to blur distinctions and to make up details of his own life and of American history out of thin air. It is for the most part a balanced book, although it does not, unfortunately, do any justice to the man's time as President, which is the most significant part of Reagan's legacy. The book was published in 1987, but it really ends with the war against Grenada in 1983, saying virtually nothing about Reagan's presidency and life beyond that point other than a very brief mention of the 1984 campaign and several (too many) mentions of the movie "Back to the Future" (at one point Wills confuses the movie's date of release, saying that Reagan mentioned it in his 1982 State of the Union address; the movie was released in 1985). Wills also touches on some events of Reagan's first term, but only sketchily. Anyone expecting this to be a thorough treatment of Reagan's presidency will be severely disappointed. However, it has a great deal of value as an exposition of the reasons why Reagan was a success, or was perceived as a success, as a president. Its final two chapters, two essays on the relation of Reagan to America and its relation to him, are breathtaking.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable treatment of the meaning of Reagan the man
Review: Those who criticize Wills for "sloppy work" are off base and clearly have an ax to grind. On the other hand, this book is not a "consummate" piece of work, either. The task of writing a Reagan biography is virtually impossible. Edmund Morris tried to do it and wound up with a botched, absurd, fictionalized mess. Wills doesn't pretend that this book is a biography. It's actually an essay in book-length form (41 short chapters, perhaps a botched attempt at writing 40 chapters to match Reagan's status as 40th president) meditating on specific episodes from Reagan's life, particularly his childhood, adolescence, and initial career as sportscaster, movie star, and Screen Actors Guild president, and the relation of Reagan's life and self-image, and his construction of that image, with the perceptions of America, particularly in connection with the mythmaking of Americans -- their propensity to willfully forget the reality of the American past in order to build a version of the past that serves as a comforting and communal illusion in a time of unprecedented chaos and change. Reagan, Wills explains, is the perfect emblem of that illusion: "The power of his appeal is the great joint confession that we cannot live with our real past, that we not only prefer but need a substitute." Wills' book is not the hatchet job that some make it out to be. He clearly has a respect for Reagan's story, his communicating magic, and his ability as a public figure to unite the American people behind a common purpose, even if that purpose is largely mythical. Nor is the book the testimony to sainthood that many of Reagan's admirers would want. It is clearly critical of Reagan's forgetfulness, his willingness to simplify, his urge to blur distinctions and to make up details of his own life and of American history out of thin air. It is for the most part a balanced book, although it does not, unfortunately, do any justice to the man's time as President, which is the most significant part of Reagan's legacy. The book was published in 1987, but it really ends with the war against Grenada in 1983, saying virtually nothing about Reagan's presidency and life beyond that point other than a very brief mention of the 1984 campaign and several (too many) mentions of the movie "Back to the Future" (at one point Wills confuses the movie's date of release, saying that Reagan mentioned it in his 1982 State of the Union address; the movie was released in 1985). Wills also touches on some events of Reagan's first term, but only sketchily. Anyone expecting this to be a thorough treatment of Reagan's presidency will be severely disappointed. However, it has a great deal of value as an exposition of the reasons why Reagan was a success, or was perceived as a success, as a president. Its final two chapters, two essays on the relation of Reagan to America and its relation to him, are breathtaking.
Rating:
Summary: A very even handed book. Honest and thought provoking.
Review: Wills captures both the man and the eras he inhabited in prose that sometimes approaches poetry. There are fascinating historical tidbits, insights a-plenty, funny jokes ("war movies are hell"), and some breathtaking chapter finales. This guy can write. And he can indict. Wills stalks Reagan (and his real subject, Reagan's America) through each stage of his life, exposing the guilt under the glitter. Wills is a consumate hanging judge here, as in his other treatises on presidents Kennedy and Nixon. Don't be fooled, however -- it's not Reagan he's hanging.
Rating: 
Summary: dead on
Review: Wills captures both the man and the eras he inhabited in prose that sometimes approaches poetry. There are fascinating historical tidbits, insights a-plenty, funny jokes ("war movies are hell"), and some breathtaking chapter finales. This guy can write. And he can indict. Wills stalks Reagan (and his real subject, Reagan's America) through each stage of his life, exposing the guilt under the glitter. Wills is a consumate hanging judge here, as in his other treatises on presidents Kennedy and Nixon. Don't be fooled, however -- it's not Reagan he's hanging.
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