Arthur F. Burns Fellow Peter J. Wallison

Peter J. Wallison reviews Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History, by John Patrick Diggins.

This is a book I very much wanted to like. Not because it was supposed to reflect a liberal's awakening to the importance and significance of Ronald Reagan, but because I hoped it was a book by a member of the academy that took Ronald Reagan seriously.

One of the remarkable things about Reagan is the dearth of serious scholarly works about his presidency. Although Professor Diggins could describe him as one of the three greatest presidents in American history--the others being Lincoln and Roosevelt--the number of scholarly books on Reagan, almost two decades after he left office, can be counted on one hand.

This is reflected in Diggins's bibliography. Most of the cited works are by journalists, and cover specific issues in Reagan's political life, or memoirs by journalists or figures in the Reagan administration. Diggins's text mostly cites Lou Cannon's book--President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime--the title of which suggests the arch way in which, at the time Cannon was writing, many people in the press thought of Ronald Reagan. . . .

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Peter J. Wallison is the Arthur F. Burns fellow in Financial Market Studies at AEI.