The Eighties America in the Age of Reagan
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The Eighties America in the Age of Reagan
During the Reagan years, Americans witnessed an extraordinary array of changes, from major technological advances to sweeping revisions of the tax code to the deregulation of major industries and the advent of the culture wars. America emerged from the decade completely transformed: political and social arrangements derived from post–World War II liberalism had given way to the highly competitive, fast-changing, technology-driven society we know today.
In The Eighties, John Ehrman tracks this transformation in the context of Ronald Reagan’s policies and convictions and examines the broader trends that enabled Reagan to achieve so much of his agenda. At a time when most Americans remained fairly centrist in their political commitments, Reagan was able to shift policy toward the right by building support for a few key policies. His gradualist approach met with little opposition from Democrats, who failed to mount a coherent response. Based on a broad range of primary source material, The Eighties offers an accessible and balanced account of a watershed decade in American history.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars the Definitive Work on a Transforming Decade
John Ehrman, whose ‘Rise of Neoconservatism’ a decade ago is still the essential work on the subject, has returned with the single book one needs to understand the 1980s. His thesis is that Ronald Reagan was a “transformational President” who both reflected and defined his times and thereby indelibly put his stamp on American civil and cultural life in a way that affects us still and will continue to do so for years to come.
‘The Eighties’ is a balanced, well-researched, engaging, and ultimately persuasive book. Reagan’s success, Ehrman argues, was based on two factors; first, Reagan understood and appealled to the natural and moderate conservatism inherent in American politics. Ehrman’s case is that Reaganism, despite the shrillness of its critics, turned out to be a moderate conservatism of the center rather than the extremist caricature touted by the left. Second, Reagan was helped immensely by the ineptness of his opponents and their failure to understand America’s conservative centrism; to this day, the Democratic party has not managed to come up with a coherent answer to Reagan.
Ehrman is particularly strong describing broad trends without becoming overly dry or academic. His description of the origins of the “culture wars” is very good, as is his discussion of the increasing irrelevance of academia. His introduction contains the clearest and most concise definitions of liberalism and conservatism I have seen. There is a withering assessment of Michael Dukakis as the Democrats’ candidate of desperation in the 1988 election against Reagan’s Vice President (some guy named Bush, who was elected in a landslide as a proxy for a third Reagan term).
Above all, Ehrman’s objectivity prevents ‘The Eighties’ from becoming a hagiography of Reagan–which is why a few on the far right don’t like it. The author faces squarely Reagan’s shortcomings, especially his managerial style. But rather than add to the plethora of biographic treatments of the 40th president, Ehrman has wisely focused on how Reagan changed American political life immutably. Whether it’s welfare reform, abandonment of confiscatory taxes, or the death of Clinton’s health care, we have to give Reagan credit–and, for many of us, he gets our thanks as well.
4 Stars Perhaps too non-judgemental
Though the title of his book suggests the possibility of narrative sweep it is in fact a more modestly targeted effort. For the most part Mr. Ehrman treats the ’80s as a transitional era, as America went from a failing industrial economy to the exuberant information economy of the ’90s and from a near universal acceptance of liberal New Deal/Great Society orthodoxy to the widespread belief, even among Third Way Democrats, in conservative approaches to social problems and the use of free market solutions to provide social services and fuel economic growth. Combined with for the most part ignoring foreign affairs this enables him to take a more sober look at Ronald Reagan than do many of the reverent analysts on the Right and the hysterical critics on the Left. In our hyperpartisan era, such dispassion is somewhat refreshing, but it does seem to make Mr. Ehrman overly cautious in offering assessments, as if giving President Reagan much credit for anything would betray an unforgivable bias. Too often that leads to a certain sense in the book that the changes that took place in the ’80s were inevitable and Mr. Reagan just happened to be in office while they went on around him. Surely there’s a middle ground between claiming that the Gipper walked on water and pretending that a second Jimmy Carter term, would have been indistinguishable from Reagan’s first?
That said, there’s one theme of the book that Mr. Ehrman handles especially well, a leitmotif that he traces through the decade to devastating effect: the complete failure of liberalism generally and the Democrats in particular to come to grips with the fact that conservatism was being re-established as a credible political philosophy in America, perhaps even its dominant one. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill; Senate Minority Leader Robert Byrd; presidential candidates Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis; pundits and academics like Robert Reich, Lester Thurow, Paul Kennedy, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.; are all portrayed as just flailing around, denying by turns the importance of Reagan’s victory, the potential that Reaganomics could revive the economy, the possibility of prevailing in the Cold War, even the future of America. The occasional reformist voice on the Left–a Gary Hart or Ira Magaziner–was overwhelmed as: “Liberal intellectuals showed themselves still beset with economic anxieties and unable to break free from past perspectives, fear of foreigners [mostly Japan and the Soviets], or unproductive abstractions.” Mr. Ehrman depicts the ’80s, quite accurately, as a lost decade for liberalism. Many of its legislative achievements and the changes it had brought to institutions endured at decade’s end, but they’d lost their intellectual justification. Significantly, when a Democrat did finally win back the presidency, it was a Southern moderate who ran against liberalism as much as against conservatism and still only managed 43% of the vote. Even Bill Clinton though seems not to have learned this lesson and by governing to the Left in his first two years lost long term control of Congress for the Democrats for the first time since the Great Depression and the party proceeded to nominate two garden variety liberals, Al Gore and John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush, who ran well to the Right of where Ronald Reagan had governed. It will be possible for succeeding authors to Mr. Ehrman’s theme into the ’90s and well into the ’00s. this gives the book an enduring significance, despite its weaknesses.
3 Stars A good review of the Reagan years, if blatantly partisan
John Ehrman writes a good review of the Reagan years in “The Eighties, American in the Age of Reagan”. Ehrman’s style of writing is a very readable replay of the 1980s but grows a bit tiresome as he failingly seeks to hide his own right wing agenda in painting the Reagan years as near perfect times for the United States domestically (he almost completely ignores foreign policy in this book). Those seeking a detailed analysis or any real research or, in fact new ideas, can take this off their reading lists. For those of us who find the more recent years of the late 20th Century to be worthy of review - this can be, for the most part an enjoyable read.
There are many errors of fact that are glaring which makes any critical reader question other arguments the author states as factual. On Michael Milken, Ehman states “to maintain the value of the bonds, he engaged in insider tarding , market manipulation, and self dealing on a colossal scale . . .”. Surely any with any knowledge know that the motivation was market share, not the value of the bonds. Colossal? Milken pled to 6 felony counts on very specific transactions, not one having to do with “insider trading”. Perhaps the author read as fact overblown books such as James Stewart which were truly worse than night time soap operas.
In a particularly arrogant way, Ehman, who has yet to (and is highly unlikely to) add any significant historical research on the 20th Century, states that C. Vann Woodward, clearly a top historian of the period, “simply was wrong”. This comment, sparked by the uproar of Bush I’s 1988 presidential compaign, replete with Willie Horton adds, was, according to Woodward “cynical and unscrupulous”.
Ehman fails to reconcile the victories of conservatism, and there were many, with the failure of a conservative economic agenda. Clearly one major reason Reagan won election was the burgeoning deficits of the Carter era (still under $70 billion at the end of his administration). Reagan’s supply side economics, Laffer curve and all, with tax cuts designed to INCREASE revenue and huge defense spending increases produced budget deficits never before seen in our nations history. It was under a liberal President that the budget was eventually in suplus for four years with Clinton in power. Bush II, who seemingly learned one thing between his father (who faltered) and Reagan (who prospered) and that was keep taxes low and continue to seek to cut them futher. This flies in the face of conservative economic doctrine and, like the fiasco with our Marines in Beruit in 1983, the author simply ignores topics that might weaken his case.
Ehman, as such, can write a nice montage of a period but cannot be expected to generate new ideas or even research old ones. Perhaps he will be the one who gets to write on George W’s “successes” as President and can sit with Rummy, Cheney, Hannity and Limbaugh one day soon in the lonely hearts club. I love a good partisan book but please don’t try and hide a glaringly jaded and right wing agenda.
4 Stars A Golden Age for Some
The Eighties certainly were a palmy time for American conservatism. Though the conflicts which have eaten away at their majority (until it wasn’t a majority any more) were all visible from the beginning, it was hard to worry about them when the day was young and the sledding was fresh. It is revealing, both of that time and our own, that the reviews I see here (most, apparently, written by conservatives) disagree so sharply, both about Ehrman’s book and about his topic.
The book is fine, though limited. It is kind (which is to say, evasive) about Reagan’s worst excesses. The grand cliche of Eighties Scholarship: that Reagan triumphed by “changing the paradigm” — that he was foremost a “great communicator” who built a new consensus on the core ideas of American politics — remains untouched. To get a more accurate assessment of Reagan, you will have to read the critical authors regarding whom a divided conservative movement joins in condemnation. I would suggest instead of this book, Garry Wills’ _Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home_. It’s a far better book, both about the parts of Reagan and his “revolution” that worked, and the parts that just weren’t there.
For a book on the destructive aspects of the Reagan years you will also have to look elsewhere. Conservatives have taken to stabbing each other these days, so those golden days in which the knife was reserved for others are now remembered like a football weekend from one’s twenties: the air was cool and crisp, the scent of falling leaves was in the air, one’s side was mostly winning and everyone one knew was happy.
5 Stars seeing ourselves from a broader perspective… sorting out what works and doesn’t work improving quality of life…
I read this book because I wanted to learn more about the history of the American economy.
The author, John Ehrman, focuses on changes in domestic policies, politics, and quality of life particularly associated with President Reagan’s years in office, 1981 to 1989. Ehrman includes substantial material on changes prior and subsequent to these years, so the continuity to present-day circumstances is excellent.
Ehrman helps Americans see themselves from a broader perspective, for example, that on the whole, Americans prefer workable ideas vs. ideologies, and gradual change vs. extremes. A key dynamic for this preference is that second and third generation immigrants of all origins experience improved education, leading to improved work opportunities, leading to improved quality of life, leading to preferring policies that promote economic stability.
The author appears to be neo-conservative (moderate) in point of view but I found the book sympathetic and comprehensive in coverage of liberal vs. conservative, moderate vs. extreme, and other contrasting points of view. In fact I found it quite instructive understanding and sorting out these points of view.
I concur with the author’s assertion that most Americans are centrist and gradual. His work helps us see the actions of President Reagan’s administration that worked and the actions that didn’t work in building consensus and making successful progress.
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