Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History

by John Patrick Diggins

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393330923
• ISBN13: 9780393330922
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Great Communicator's Political Philosophy

I read this book for a graduate class in American history. In this noteworthy biography, John Patrick Diggins sheds light on Ronald Reagan's evolving political philosophy and how this philosophy was his rule and guide throughout his life. Expertly written and based on both primary and secondary sources, this book's view favors Reagan's political career in general. Diggins did an excellent job of pointing out both historical and contemporary figures who helped form Reagan's religious beliefs and political philosophy. Some examples are Thomas Paine, Reagan's mother, Whittaker Chambers who was an anti-Communist, and economist F. A. Hayek. By following a more psychological approach in this biography of the fortieth president of the United States, Diggins drew a clearer picture of Reagan's political motivations than has been previously available. Diggins' biography has made Reagan, who was perhaps the most important president of the second half of the twentieth century, more understandable to his readers. In his biography, Diggins was adept at pointing out many of the misconceptions that liberals had of Reagan's religious and political beliefs. As an example, Diggins emphasized the role Reagan's mother had in formulating his religious beliefs that stayed with him throughout his life. From his mother, Reagan inherited the optimistic outlook on life that the Disciples of Christ Church espoused. It would fit very neatly with his political philosophy that he shared with Thomas Paine. Both men were staunch believers in people attaining liberty and freedom from oppressive government. After all Diggins made the point innumerably throughout his book, that if there was one defining and deeply held belief that Reagan had, it was that "Reagan inevitably saw government as the problem" (xvii). There were so many incongruities in Reagan's religious attitudes and actions that historians will be debating them for many years to come. Diggins expertly pointed out that for all the support that the Moral Majority crowd, led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, gave Reagan in both his presidential campaigns, he truly shared little in common with their strict religious beliefs. Reagan did not wear his religion on his sleeve. He did not claim to be a born again Christian. During his years in the White House, he seldom attended church services. Although as Governor of California in 1967 Reagan signed a bill to grant women the right to have an abortion, he soon had misgivings but never tried to push legislation through to abolish abortion. He would speak out against abortion for the rest of his life. Similarly, Reagan spoke of the need for religion in the classroom; however, he made no political moves to bring that goal of the Moral Majority to fruition. In essence, "Reagan looked to religion less as a source of divine guidance than as a bulwark against the power of the state" (32). Since Reagan believed that removing the stifling yoke of government off

Like Reagan himself: gets some lesser things wrong, but the big, important things beautifully right

I never thought I'd give a five-star review to a book with which I had disagreed in so many places. But this is just a fantastic book; original, provocative, magnificently insightful, and oftentimes poetic. It should revolutionize understanding of Ronald Reagan, even if not every interpretation in the book holds up. Diggins sets out to rescue Ronald Reagan from his acolytes on the right and his detractors on the left. He argues that both fundamentally misunderstand the nature and meaning of his greatness. For Diggins, Reagan is clearly among the greatest two or three Presidents after Lincoln. He credits Reagan with finding a peaceful way to end the Cold War, and for the Soviet Empire to dissolve without war or violent revolution. Diggins states that this is one of the great political surprises in all of history, and so it is. Diggins rejects the conventional rightist explanation that the Soviet Union collapsed only after Reagan and his conservative Administration challenged the Soviets on every front: via a military buildup with which the Soviets couldn't contend; with counter pressure against communist aggression around the world; with the strategic defense initiative, etc. In fact, Diggins depicts many of Reagan's policies, both domestic and international, as misguided. Diggins contradicts the Reagan view that many of the world's communist insurgencies were facilitated by Moscow. Diggins further asserts that the Soviet Union imploded on its own, and would have done so with or without US economic and military pressure. But Diggins credits Reagan for seeing beyond other US strategists, and for understanding the opportunity and necessity of negotiating communism's demise without war. Diggins depicts Reagan as seizing a unique historical moment, and understanding how to do business with Gorbachev. He portrays Reagan not as a warrior but as a great diplomat and educator of the international public. The final pages of the book are very moving, when Reagan goes to Moscow State University and addresses the Russian people. Taught that the pursuit of wealth led to despair and to self-estrangement, they instead heard from Reagan that free economies were the path to fulfillment and self-reliance, something that America's "academic-media complex" (a felicitous phrase) failed to understand, perhaps because their own well-being depended less than the Russians' on such understanding. One needn't agree with Diggins's take on Reagan and his policies in all respects, and I certainly did not. But Diggins is absolutely right in showing the Reagan that was utterly misunderstood by the American left. Far from being a warmonger, Reagan maintained a horror of nuclear war, and he fully grasped the folly of the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction that had held decades of American thinkers in its deluding sway. Reagan understood that an American President could not assure his people's, or the world's, security solely with the threat that he could

The power of an idea

I thought I knew Ronald Reagan. I thought he won the Cold War by engaging the Soviets in an arms race & forcing them to capitulate when they could no longer afford to keep up. I thought he was was a hawk & not a peacemaker. I knew he was not an intellectual & also not the amiable dunce his detractors said he was. I also knew he had the courage of his convictions. But I never knew how devoted Ronald Reagan was to an idea & how the idea of freedom was so central to his thinking until I read this wonderful intellectual biography. John Patrick Diggins in his Ronald Reagan, Fate, Freedom, And The Making Of History re-introduces me to the man & President I once loved & it has, sadly, tarnished the admiration I had for him. There is a place for a reassessment of the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. Much has changed since he left office. As an intellectual biography this book demands some patience & diligence to assimilate the ideas brought forth. Diggins shows how Reagan's philosophy of freedom is actually borrowed from an earlier tradition of political liberalism or libertarianism which itself is indebted heavily to the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Reagan, Diggins says, was bequeathed his ideas of freedom by the Universalist religion of his mother & his education at Eureka College, a small, liberal arts & Christian school in Illinois. Reagan had a core belief in the goodness & competency of each individual. He believed that if each individual was left alone without the interference of government each individual would create their own wealth & happiness. In this belief he falls away from the guilt-ridden Christian fundamentalist doctrine of sin & away from the constructions of the Federalists who were so influential in the writing of our Constitution. Diggins says Reagan's Christianity didn't need the concept of sin or guilt. Those concepts were impediments to the power of individual choice. His fundamental belief in the ability of men to rise above their government allowed him to use his negotiating skills learned as a president of the Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood to barter an end to the Cold War. He believed if he could sit down face to face with a Soviet leader & both agree that a nuclear war would mean the death of civilization & thus a nuclear war could not be won. He ignored his Neo-Con advisers who believed communism & the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union would last forever & who believed their leaders would never negotiate. Reagan believed men & not governments made history. In Mikhail Gorbachev he found a kindred spirit & together they were able to rise above history & dismantle both nuclear arsenals & walk away from the insane asylum of Mutual Assured Destruction. Reagan was anti-government first & anti-communist second. Ronald Reagan made war at the same time on government in his own country. He started a political movement which, through the means of his & subsequent Republican Admin

Please, Professor Diggins . . .

In this book, a distinguished professor of history examines the education and fundamental beliefs of Ronald Reagan; the liberalism and conservatism of his time; and his goals, objectives, accomplishments, failures, and triumphs as President of the United States of America. In the process, he makes some profound observations and comes to some rather surprising conclusions. Three such observations stand out: 1) Reagan's formal education and religious upbringing pre-dated the radical liberalism of his time in office, i.e., he wasn't an "intellectual"; 2) his brand of Conservatism was remarkably close to the Liberalism of an earlier time; and 3) Reagan won the battle with the student activists in the 1960s but may also have lost the war, since those radicals went on to become the university professors who were, and are, his most vocal political critics. The author contends that Reagan's major flaw, as president, was that, as a result of his early encounters with communism in the 1950s, he became obsessed with communism, which he perceived as truly evil, and came to interpret every action of the Soviet Union in that light. This, the author contends, caused him to misjudge and misunderstand much of what was happening in South America and in the Middle East. For example, he failed to realize that those fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan weren't "freedom fighters," but were, in fact, the zealots who would go on to become today's Islamic terrorists. The author further contends that it wasn't until Reagan came to the profound conclusion that the greatest threat to America and to the world at large was nuclear annihilation, for at that time both the United States and the Soviet Union had the capability to destroy the world. This was a threat which had hung over the world like the sword of Damocles for almost forty years. It was then that Reagan saw the folly of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and made the elimination of nuclear weapons his highest priority. That realization led him to become an enlightened statesman and a leader unique in world history. In the author's opinion, not only did he succeed in bringing an end to the "cold war," in eliminating the threat of nuclear annihilation, and in facilitating the break-up of the Soviet Empire, but he did something unprecedented in world history. He ended a long-standing confrontation with an avowed enemy state without resorting to war and for the first time in world history an empire collapsed without war or revolution. I don't agree with everything Professor Diggins contends in this book and sensed an underlying theme of radical liberalism throughout much of it. But all things considered, this may well be the most important book about Ronald Reagan, and his life and times, that has been written to date. As a minimum, it is the most complete and comprehensive study of Reagan's political life that the reader is likely to find. It makes the reader think and makes him wonder, and ma

Reagan and his Quest for Liberty. Well-Researched and Important

In this illuminating book "Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History," John Patrick Diggins shows that Reagan was influenced by old-school Jeffersonian liberalism (often called libertarianism). Diggins calls Reagan Emersonian in his optimistic belief in self-reliance and emphasis on individual freedom. Reagan believes in people. Reagan's extensive writings, speeches and political career show Reagan to be a thoughtful advocate of individual freedom. Therefore, he was a staunch enemy of communism or any form of totalitarianism. Reagan's spirit was deeply shaped by his mother, a member of the Disciples of Christ faith (related to Unitarianism), which espoused an optimistic view of nature and personal responsibility. Reagan was most concerned about the power of government, which makes him an anti-government conservative and an optimistic advocate of individualism. Reagan was not a pessimistic old-school conservative (which means more government control) like Edmund Burke or a racial (social order) conservative like Southern conservatives. Reagan's crusade was individual liberty. Indeed, the author argues that Reagan was in some ways anti-establishment in his optimistic belief in individual freedom. Reagan opposed the dangers of the Third Reich as a younger man and then waged a lifetime fight against Soviet communism. He was not an isolationist, associated with old-school conservatism. Reagan advocated political freedom and free trade, and he was sincere and optimistic in his convictions. He had a good soul, Diggins writes. Reagan's proactive optimism helped bring liberty to Eastern Europe. Very few people, other than Reagan, believed that Communism would collapse. Yet Reagan saw it coming, because he viewed communism as an unnatural system. Reagan's can-do optimism led him to negotiate a peaceful end to the Cold War. Contrary to what neo-cons falsely claim, Reagan's charm and sincere diplomacy with Gorbachev achieved the end of the Cold War peacefully. (Read Reagan's autobiography to hear it from Reagan himself.) Reagan pivoted from confrontation to a peaceful unraveling of USSR due to Perestroika and the fatal flaws of communism, with a push from Reagan. I would like to add that Reagan's burial site is inscribed with these optimistic words: "I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life." Reagan spoke these optimistic words at the opening of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and these optimistic words express what Reagan wanted to be remembered by. They express his optimistic belief in individual liberty. Reagan optimistically wrote in his autobiography "An American Life" that "every individual is unique, but we all want freedom and liberty, peace, love and security, a good home, and a chance to worship God in our own way; we all want the chance to get ahead and make our children's lives better than our own." He wrote that "my moth