Tags
American history, biographies, Bob Spitz, book reviews, presidential biographies, Ronald Reagan, US Presidents
Published in late 2018, Bob Spitz’s “Reagan: An American Journey” is the most recently published biography of Ronald Reagan. Spitz is a journalist and author whose previous best-selling books include “Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child” and
“The Beatles: The Biography.” Spitz was previously a manager for Bruce Springsteen and Elton John.
At first glance, Spitz seems an unlikely presidential biographer. He is neither a journalist who spent decades closely covering his subject nor is he a historian with a predilection for writing. And yet Spitz has authored the most substantial – and possibly the most commendable – comprehensive, single-volume biography of Reagan I’ve read.
This 761-page tome is built upon a foundation of hundreds of interviews with Reagan’s family, friends and associates, access to his personal papers (granted by Nancy prior to her death in 2016) and insights provided by earlier biographers. Anyone curious about the scope of effort involved in undertaking a biography should consult Spitz’s “Acknowledgements.”
Spitz’s skills as a biographer are quickly clear. He is an extremely competent writer adept at holding a reader’s attention. Rarely satisfied just divulging facts, he often places the reader in a scene with vivid descriptions of the setting, the players and the drama. Though not quite as gifted as Caro or McCullough in this respect, Spitz clearly revels in creating a rich literary tapestry.
Reagan’s pre-presidency (nearly seven decades of his life) absorbs about 60 percent of the book and is the most valuable portion of the biography. Spitz provides one of the most detailed and interesting explorations of Reagan’s ancestry I’ve read anywhere, and Reagan’s childhood is no less revealing.
Jane Wyman and Nancy Davis receive marvelous multi-page introductions while several other supporting characters receive comparatively concise, but still enlightening, introductory attention. And Spitz describes Reagan’s involvement with the Screen Actors Guild in as colorful and comprehensible a way as I’ve seen.
Reagan’s public and personal lives each receive appropriate focus throughout the book. And even readers familiar with Reagan are likely to learn something new about his early years (though new details about young Dutch’s sex life seem gratuitous). Finally, Spitz approaches his subject with a remarkable sense of balance; there is no impression of political preference or prejudice…just the sense of a detached observer in pursuit of a compelling story.
The author’s instinct for analyzing and conveying Reagan’s youth and acting career is often excellent; the reader gains an excellent understanding for what happened (and often why) as well as the residual impact on Reagan’s later personality and character. But Spitz’s dexterity as a political analyst is less extraordinary, and his coverage of Reagan’s gubernatorial and presidential careers lacks the same degree of insight or wisdom.
Spitz does not provide the thorough examination of Reagan’s evolving political philosophy informed readers may expect. And while his review of Reagan’s governorship is competent, a notable billion-dollar tax hike is dispatched with a single sentence and Reagan’s 1970 opponent (“Big Daddy”) is never mentioned. Coverage of Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign is too pithy and his remarkable (and impromptu) convention speech almost goes entirely unobserved.
Coverage of Reagan’s two-term presidency is satisfactory but unexceptional. Spitz is at his best when describing discrete events – such as the attempt on Reagan’s life – rather than legislative priorities or policy details. Finally, notable figures such as Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev receive disappointingly curt introductions…and the book contains an occasional careless error (such as substituting “million” for “billion”).
Overall, however, Bob Spitz’s “Reagan: An American Journey” proves to be a well-written and delightfully engaging biography of the 40th president. It is somewhat uneven in emphasis and anyone seeking special insight into Reagan’s political career may wish to supplement this book. But for readers in search of a captivating and comprehensive cradle-to-grave biography of Ronald Reagan, there may be no better place to turn.
Overall rating: 4¼ stars
My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies 
I read the Kindle Sample and really enjoyed it, so I was hoping that it would continue to go as well. Glad to hear it.
FWIW this seems to be the division between RR biographers. Those who do justice to his political career don’t cover other aspects as well, and those who do a good job with youth and Hollywood don’t do a great job on the politics (or in Morris’s case even an adequate one).
This is very true. Reagan lived a very full life, and indeed many aspects of it have received their own books of several hundred pages. One extreme example is “Reagan’s 1968 Dress Rehearsal” which focuses on Reagan’s relationships with Eisenhower and even RFK during just the two year period 1967-1968, and how it prepared him for his presidency, and this book comes in at over 900 pages! There are books focusing just on his covert policies with Poland, his collaboration with the Pope, and other focused topics. Having read over 100 books on Reagan, I’ve dug myself into a hole now where whenever I read a single volume bio, I know exactly what it leaves out and how significant it was. Nonetheless, I love the single volume biographies as each has its merits, and I still enjoy reading and reviewing them.
Since you’ve read a wild amount, what would you list as the “go to” Reagan bio’s? Mostly looking for a complete life bio, but if i had a preference i would lean more towards his political life than childhood and hollywood (which kind of turns me off to Spitz’s book).
If you are looking for the best review of his political life I would either turn to Iwan Morgan’s “Reagan: American Icon” for a relatively efficient treatment or to Lou Cannon’s “President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime.” For the best review of Reagan’s pre-political career I would obviously go in a different direction 🙂
Thanks Steve, appreciate the feedback…I was anxiously awaiting this review. Now we’ll see if the wife ordered this from my xmas wish list, if so ill read it if not i’ll go Lou Cannon.
With the holiday craziness, I was unplugged for a while and didn’t respond, though Steve’s response is excellent. I really like Iwan Morgan’s “Reagan: An American Icon” as it is the most balanced and fair analysis of Reagan’s presidency, and is more recent than Cannon’s “Role of a Lifetime.” As good as Cannon’s work is, it is now somewhat dated as we have learned MUCH more about Reagan’s presidency since then as a wealth of foreign policy information has been declassified in the last 15 years. Still, it’s one of the better options and one I’d recommend. Also, Steve provides some great reviews and recommendations here, and I’ll try to touch on books he didn’t cover, so while “When Character Was King” is a great analysis of Reagan’s character, I won’t touch on it in my comment because Steve already did so perfectly.
Unfortunately, there is not yet a definitive go-to cradle to grave biography of Reagan. I felt Spitz’s would be that one through the first half of the book, but then once it got to his presidency it was a whole new animal, and not for the better. Frankly, Brand’s treatment of Reagan’s presidency is better than Spitz’s, but it is also imperfect. There are a few excellent books that offer exciting insights into specific aspects of his presidency and life. With Reagan, to get the most complete and accurate coverage, you’d probably need to pick a few books, even if you just read sections of some (such as Spitz’s pre-gubernatorial coverage to learn about Reagan’s life through Hollywood). I’ll list a few below, most of which are shorter books as they focus on specific things, so it’s very easy to pick a couple and read them fairly quickly.
“Reagan at Reykjavik” is a thrilling account of this unplanned yet pivotal summit from October 1986. It offers excellent first hand insight and observations into that event from people who were there. I really enjoyed this.
“Rawhide Down” focused just on the Reagan assassination attempt, but this is one of the most thrilling presidential oriented books I’ve read, even my wife couldn’t put this one down and that is REALLY saying something as she does NOT read history books. It details how close to death Reagan really came, and how scared all the nurses and doctors were that they would lose him, and how close to reality that eventuality was for a couple of hours.
“The Reagan Enigma” is one of the best books out there for really getting inside Reagan’s mind. It is one of the best and most revealing character portraits.
“Victory” is one that reads like a spy thriller and is less academic and more pure narrative of many clandestine efforts in Reagan’s foreign policy. The reason for this is that Peter Schweizer wrote it shortly after Reagan’s presidency and couldn’t be very specific because much of the material to confirm it was classified, but in recent years the narrative has been confirmed by declassification of documents.
Some other short, excellent topical books you could choose from based on interest are “Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons,” “Reagan’s Secret War” (one of many topical books focused specifically on his foreign policy efforts to wage all out economic war on the Soviet Union, others include “The Crusader” and “Reagan’s War”), and the just published “A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland.”
I have a lot of rare transcripts from academic conferences focused on the Reagan years. These are some of my favorite additions to my library as they are the transcripts of remarks given at week long conferences by well known and respected historians and academics. It’s interesting to read their remarks where they aren’t tailoring them to broad audience who they hope will read their book, but to hear them simply present all the evidence they have found, and then debate it with each other. Some of these include “The Economic Legacy of the Reagan Years: Euphoria or Chaos?”, “The Reagan Presidency & the Politics of Race: In Pursuit of Colorblind Justice,” “Ronald Reagan’s America, Volumes 1 and 2,” and “President Reagan and the World.” These are great to pick-up and read a lecture or two at a time, and each one is followed with a Q&A section from conference attendees and other participants who drill down into the lecture that was just given. Super interesting stuff.
When I began studying presidents years ago, I had no idea so much of my time would be taken by Reagan, but I think my journey has recognized the fact that his presidency is the most recent one being objectively analyzed now as the appropriate amount of time has passed for that to happen, so there’s a lot happening on that front. Hoover and Grant are the other two who unexpectedly took a lot of my time and over 10,000 pages of research each.
It seems you shared my biggest takeaways from this book–excellent coverage of Reagan’s youth and ancestry, but overall uneven in emphasis. The high points were very high indeed. This was the best coverage I’ve ever read of Reagan’s youth and adolescence, as well as his ancestry. Spitz really took his time allowing us to get to know Reagan, with Reagan not leaving for Hollywood until page 149 (most books reach this point before page 50). I was absolutely loving this book for the first few hundred pages, but then things took a turn when Reagan become president.
I actually felt like Spitz was writing about two different Reagans, the Reagan who was President and the one who wasn’t. Most of the focus during the pages devoted to Reagan’s presidency had nothing to do with his policies or achievements, which surprised me. I felt Spitz focused far too much on Iran-Contra, making that the most covered aspect of Reagan’s presidency and being addressed on 72 pages of the 253 devoted to Reagan’s presidency, or a full 30%. The next most covered part of his presidency was Reagan’s Cold War policies, coming in at about 18% of coverage. I was surprised Reagan’s economic policies were only addressed on 8 pages total, and most of those references weren’t very insightful. He would flesh out arguments against them, but then casually mention their positive aspects briefly as an aside without any equal analysis. I remember reading one passage in particular that was several paragraphs discussing the pitfalls of the economic policies, and then in a single sentence he shared some of the positive results but left it at that.
In addition to feeling the balance of treatment during the presidential years was highly uneven, I felt many things worth covering weren’t addressed at all, such as the significant 1987 bipartisan tax bill, or the equally significant and bipartisan immigration bill (which has had significant impact, for better and worse, on our broken immigration system). Both of those bills were a success for the president, and even more so because they were passed with a Congress controlled by Democrats. I also yearned for some coverage on his friendship with Bush, but found Bush nearly absent. There was also no coverage of Reagan’s covert assistance to Poland, which provides some VERY exciting stories, and lasted much of his presidency, and there was also an absence of coverage on Reagan’s alliance with the Pope in these clandestine efforts and the Pope’s overall cooperation with Reagan’s anti-Communist crusade. These efforts were all perfectly legal and authorized by Congress, and even more impactful and significant than Iran-Contra, but I felt that is the reason why Spitz didn’t address them. Being legal and authorized, they are not as titillating to read about, despite their being more significant and full of incredible stories. Scandals sell better than simple stories, no matter how exciting they may be.
Going back to your original word of “uneven,” this felt like a book of two tales—one of Ronald Reagan the President, an unstable actor who ascended to the presidency simply because he knew how to put on a good show and play to people’s emotions, and Ronald Reagan the man, who outside of his presidency was honest, principled, and consistently committed to what he genuinely believed was right. I felt like Spitz admired Reagan the man, and this was apparent when Reagan wasn’t president, but during the 253 page section on his presidency, Spitz struggled to present a balanced assessment of Reagan’s 8 years in the White House because he was not a fan of the Reagan presidency and policies. Iwan Morgan did a much better job in “American Icon” of objectively analyzing Reagan’s presidency, and he admits right up front that he was a liberal opponent of the president during his two terms. Still, this book had the significant merits that you pointed out about Reagan’s youth and his ancestry. I even enjoyed the brief coverage after Reagan’s presidency very immensely. Given the strengths and weaknesses of both this and Morgan’s books, I would recommend them as a pair. Start with this one, but supplement the coverage of his presidency with Morgan’s work for an overall exceptional treatment of Reagan.
Thanks for your detailed commentary – knowing you had read this book I was quite curious to see what you thought. Nothing you said surprised me and in a few areas you managed say what I was thinking better than I was able.
This turned out to be one of the longest reviews I’ve written (I try to keep them to 500-550 words) and I struggled to keep it *this* short – there was simply so much more to say, most of which you captured in one way or another.
It occurred to me that I would love to combine Spitz’s “pre-presidency” with Lou Cannon’s volume covering Reagan’s two presidential terms. And if I could get Cannon to refresh his volume a bit (since it’s about a quarter-century old) that would create an extraordinary one-two punch.
Or, even better, I’d love to combine Spitz’s pre-presidency with Cannon’s presidency and Morgan’s post-presidency. If I could find a way to harmonize the writing styles that might be an unbeatable combination.
Steve, couple questions for you on your Reagan journey; would you say it is accurate that the Spitz book, with its focus on his personal life, plus Cannon’s book on his role as POTUS would make up the best combination to understand Reagan’s life? I’ll await your summary of POTUS #40, if you’re still considering things.
I’ve read numerous reviews on Bob Spitz’s work and it has been mentioned on several occasions that he is a brilliant writer, but far from a political analyst.
On a related note, I must say that the epilogue in Iwan Morgan’s book was an excellent encapsulation overall, and I’m curious to know if you happen to feel the same way on any aspect or parts of Mr. Spitz’s book?
I think you hit the nail right on the head (see my response to the comment just prior to yours).
I was previously unfamiliar with Spitz but found him to be an phenomenally keen observer of people and an incredibly articulate and engaging writer. But as a political analyst he is mediocre (which is a shame).
So while the pre-presidency portion of his book was essentially a ‘5’ on my scale, the part of his biography covering Reagan’s political career was probably a 3 or 3.5.
And as you may see in my soon-to-come “Best Biographies of Ronald Reagan” post, I absolutely think combining Spitz’s pre-presidency with Lou Cannon’s presidential volume with Iwan Morgan’s “epilogue” would form very nearly the perfect presidential biography (for me, anyway).
…as to your last question, there isn’t a single chapter of Spitz’s book that I thought was unusually exceptional, but I think that even someone who has already read “too many” biographies of Reagan would be doing themselves a disservice if they didn’t buy Spitz’s book JUST to read the first 335 pages (up to the beginning of his gubernatorial career).
I was interested in your comments about this. I generally agree with your analysis on the ranking of these biographies. I was curious about this one. I generally don’t do many “celebrity” biographies, preferring political and military characters for the most part (with Gary Giddens’ Bing Crosby (2 vols. so far) and Neal Gabler’s Walt Disney being exceptions. Bob Spitz’s Beatles was also in that category and Reagan was a “celebrity” President, even more so than Trump. That might explain his great strengths before his political analysis. I think to capture Reagan’s essence though, the biographer needs such strength, which is why you probably gave this book such a high rating. I’ll have to check it out.
To be more specific, I think Spitz’s book captured Reagan’s pre-political years exceptionally well but for someone hoping to understand Reagan’s “essence” I would also read Noonan’s “When Character Was King” since I think she penetrated his persona better than anyone.
I just got this in the mail and cant wait to jump in. I’m only doing one book on each president and I think this is the right one for me. I lived through the Reagan years and I’ve studied him extensively, so a book that’s not as focused on politics doesn’t bother me here.
It will be interesting to see your thoughts going forward. I find that modern presidents are much more difficult to evaluate. From here on out, the cement is still wet on these president’s legacies.