Product Description

Did America's fortieth president lead a conservative counterrevolution that left liberalism gasping for air? The answer, for both his admirers and his detractors, is often "yes." In Morning in America, Gil Troy argues that the Great Communicator was also the Great Conciliator. His pioneering and lively reassessment of Ronald Reagan's legacy takes us through the 1980s in ten year-by-year chapters, integrating the story of the Reagan presidency with stories of the decade's cultural icons and watershed moments-from personalities to popular television shows.

One such watershed moment was the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. With the trauma of Vietnam fading, the triumph of America's 1983 invasion of tiny Grenada still fresh, and a reviving economy, Americans geared up for a festival of international harmony that-spurred on by an entertainment-focused news media, corporate sponsors, and the President himself-became a celebration of the good old U.S.A. At the Games' opening, Reagan presided over a thousand-voice choir, a 750-member marching band, and a 90,000-strong teary-eyed audience singing "America the Beautiful!" while waving thousands of flags.

Reagan emerges more as happy warrior than angry ideologue, as a big-picture man better at setting America's mood than implementing his program. With a vigorous Democratic opposition, Reagan's own affability, and other limiting factors, the eighties were less counterrevolutionary than many believe. Many sixties' innovations went mainstream, from civil rights to feminism. Reagan fostered a political culture centered on individualism and consumption-finding common ground between the right and the left.

Written with verve, Morning in America is both a major new look at one of America's most influential modern-day presidents and the definitive story of a decade that continues to shape our times.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #836258 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-12
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.33 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From Amazon.com
Morning in America, Gil Troy's examination of Ronald Reagan's legacy, is not nearly as linear as the subtitle, "How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s," would suggest. While the influence of Reagan's image-oriented presidency (the book's title is drawn from a pivotal campaign commercial) and capital-driven domestic approach influenced the birth of the '80s media explosion and the fashionable status of capitalism, Troy shows that the inverse was also true, with Reagan and his team of advisors responding to trends as much as guiding them. Troy revisits icons of the decade--Madonna, Hill Street Blues, Dynasty, CNN, yuppies--and demonstrates the ways in which they intersected with the guiding principles of Reaganism and in turn why they are what you think of when you think of the '80s. Of course the decade was also notorious for a rise in crime, the emergence of AIDS, and growing fears of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Troy tackles that duality as well, arguing that unlike the malaise of the Jimmy Carter era, the idea of Reagan, and the notion behind his electoral victories, was one of wishing to see the country how one would like it to be. As might be expected from a book that blends pop culture, politics, and history, some arguments are better than others (can we really glean all that much about abortion by noting that Madonna insists "I'm gonna keep my baby" in the chorus?). But the effort to look at an era as a whole by examining its many different parts is often successful. Although Troy is clearly a big fan of Reagan, this is not necessarily hagiography. In fact, it's not really about Reagan at all. Historian Troy is more interested in Reagan's identity as a cultural symbol than he is in defending or attacking the decisions made during Reagan's two terms in office.--John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
Entering the realm of the proverbial chicken-and-egg problem, historian Troy examines the relationship between Ronald Reagan's presidency and the materialistic and politically vibrant culture of the 1980s. In chapters organized by year from 1980 to 1990, Troy weaves his narrative of Reagan's presidency into an impressionistic portrait of the cultural and political phenomena that defined the decade-from network shows Dynasty and the Cosby Show, through the rise of MTV, CNN, yuppies, Madonna and Donald Trump, to the culture wars of race, gender and political correctness. The effort makes for a lively read, packed with insightful comments about the decade and its legacies. Dubbing Reagan's era "the Great Reconciliation," "where the sixties met the eighties culturally and politically," Troy dismantles the myth of a politically passive mainstream. Treading a line between lionizing Reagan and disparaging him as "airhead," he highlights the contradictions of Reagan's conservatism, with its emphasis on wealth and glamour on the one hand and, on the other, "an ascetic streak that recoiled at such excess." Beside Reagan's vision of a "morning in America," manifested in a soaring economy, surging patriotism and faltering Soviet Communism, Reagan presided over "mourning in America" with spiking crime, drugs, family breakdowns and AIDS. Troy avers that Reagan "dominated, and defined, the times" and "remains the greatest president since Franklin Roosevelt." But the Reagan that emerges from his analysis is less the captain steering American culture than a symbol of the 1980s whose greatest strength lay in placing his finger on the pulse of "the American id." As Troy writes, Reagan projected a vision that "was the vision of themselves most Americans wanted to see." Whether Reagan consciously sought to do so, however, remains an open question. 15 pages of b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
A lively, sprawling work that sees Reagan's reflection in everything from '80s TV shows such as Dynasty to the rejection of 'New Coke' by consumers to the creation of CNN and USA TODAY. . . . He may have disregarded the rise of AIDS and seemed clueless about the rise in homelessness during his watch, but he also helped create 'an Era of Good Feelings' that left most Americans feeling better about themselves and their country. -- Susan Page, USA TODAY

Morning in America is the rarest of academic histories: insightful, energetic, and a joy to read. -- Peter Schweizer, The New York Sun

[A] masterly study of Ronald Reagan's presidency--the best single book we have on his administration to date. -- David Turner, Raleigh News & Observer

The main thing Troy has produced is a portrait of the United States in the 1980s in all of its color and texture. . . . [T]he book is a mine of information on U.S. popular culture, presented by one who lived through those times. -- Norman Webster, Montreal Gazette

A balanced, thoughtful, and thoroughly entertaining account of Reagan's legacy. . . . This book is sure to become popular and deserves a large audience. Enthusiastically recommended. -- Library Journal

A valuable and enjoyable book. . . . Troy's readable book is impressive in its integration of political and social history, while he rightly recognizes that popular culture can provide an effective gauge of the public mood. Thus, he effectively uses the television series Hill Street Blues to illustrate attitudes towards crime and race, and throughout, he uses television, film, and popular music. Troy is anything but a Reagan cheerleader, and he stresses the still contentious nature of the Reagan record. -- Philip Jenkins, Books & Culture

Reagan remains our national Rorschach test, a good guide to what we think about the issues of our time. . . . With a year-by-year analysis of the 80's, set in the context of popular culture, Mr. Troy measures the social and cultural consequences of Reagan's free-market agenda. Optimism, individualism, consumerism and even hedonism promote prosperity. But they can--and Mr. Troy believes they did--dilute a sense of community and civic virtue, devalue a nation's social capital, and accelerate the descent into alienation and cynicism. -- Glenn C. Altschuler, New York Observer

Troy not only captures Reagan the leader but also the watershed decade he dominated and defined. -- Bill Pierce, Toronto Sun

Troy's book . . . cannot help being engaging, packed as it is with memorabilia of the Reagan years. . . . Troy . . . makes a communitarian critique of the Reagan era. He is on solid ground in contending that America became more individualistic and materialistic under Regan, and also in noting that the trend predated and postdated his presidency. -- Ramesh Ponnuru, Claremont Review of Books

One of Troy's key points is that our memory of Reagan makes his reign seem either more idyllic or more tyrannical than it was in reality. . .. Gil Troy has given us a fascinating look at a crucial decade. -- Timothy Barney, Rhetoric and Public Affairs