In a revealing new book, Reagan insider and former adviser, Thomas Reed gives us the definitive treatise on Reagan's mind. Reed, who managed and worked closely with Reagan during the complex leader's politically formative years, reveals untold tales that bring new clarity to understanding Reagan. The Reagan Enigma takes students of politics one step closer to understanding the emergence of a great leader. On the golden anniversary of Reagan's A Time for Choosing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, which launched Reagan s political career, this groundbreaking book reveals that Reagan's mind was focused and decisive. He was a political grand master, a dozen moves ahead of every opponent at every turn. His mind was lightning-fast, with an immense capacity for facts and history. Reagan was more than an actor; he was a master of the stage. Reagan's conversion, from FDR-supporting Democrat to Eisenhower Republican had multiple roots: WW-II experiences; threats of violence from communist Screen Actors Guild infiltrators; the war in Korea; to name a few. Reagan was not ambitious for high office. Yet whatever he did in his life, he had to be the best at it. The idea of having power or being the President was entertaining, but it was Nancy who provided the burning ambition. At the same time, as Mike Deaver noted, "Reagan was the fiercest competitor I ever knew." A strange divergence. This book also reveals why Robert Kennedy was the supreme villain in Reagan's life. "Now is the right time to open my archives, to collect the insights of my surviving peers, and to weave all of this into an unexpected but accurate explanation of Reagan's mind," Reed said. What follows may provide the perspective that many have sought but few have found.

In a revealing new book, Reagan insider and former adviser, Thomas Reed gives us the definitive treatise on Reagan's mind. Reed, who managed and worked closely with Reagan during the complex leader's politically formative years, reveals untold tales that bring new clarity to understanding Reagan. The Reagan Enigma takes students of politics one step closer to understanding the emergence of a great leader.

In the first full-scale biography of Calvin Coolidge in a generation, Robert Sobel shatters the caricature of our thirtieth president as a silent, do-nothing leader. Sobel instead exposes the real Coolidge, whose legacy as the most Jeffersonian of all twentieth century presidents still reverberates today.

A moving memoir of the beloved fortieth president of the United States, by his son. February 6, 2011, is the one hundredth anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth. To mark the occasion, Ron Reagan has written My Father at 100, an intimate look at the life of his father-one of the most popular presidents in American history-told from the perspective of someone who knew Ronald Reagan better than any adviser, friend, or colleague. As he grew up under his father's watchful gaze, he observed the very qualities that made the future president a powerful leader. Yet for all of their shared experiences of horseback rides and touch football games, there was much that Ron never knew about his father's past, and in My Father at 100, he sets out to understand this beloved, if often enigmatic, figure who turned his early tribulations into a stunning political career. Since his death in 2004, President Reagan has been a galvanizing force that personifies the values of an older America and represents an important era in national history. Ron Reagan traces the sources of these values in his father's early years and offers a heartfelt portrait of a man and his country-and his personal memories of the president he knew as "Dad."

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011 A Richmond Times Dispatch Top Book for 2011 A minute-by-minute account of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was just seventy days into his first term of office when John Hinckley Jr. opened fire outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, wounding the president, press secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent, and a D.C. police officer. For years, few people knew the truth about how close the president came to dying, and no one has ever written a detailed narrative of that harrowing day. Now, drawing on exclusive new interviews and never-before-seen documents, photos, and videos, Del Quentin Wilber tells the electrifying story of a moment when the nation faced a terrifying crisis that it had experienced less than twenty years before, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. With cinematic clarity, we see Secret Service agent Jerry Parr, whose fast reflexes saved the president's life; the brilliant surgeons who operated on Reagan as he was losing half his blood; and the small group of White House officials frantically trying to determine whether the country was under attack. Most especially, we encounter the man code-named "Rawhide," a leader of uncommon grace who inspired affection and awe in everyone who worked with him. Ronald Reagan was the only serving U.S. president to survive being shot in an assassination attempt.* Rawhide Down is the first true record of the day and events that literally shaped Reagan's presidency and sealed his image in the modern American political firmament. *There have been many assassination attempts on U.S. presidents, four of which were successful: Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. President Theodore Roosevelt was injured in an assassination attempt after leaving office.

The author of Rise of the Vulcans presents a controversial analysis of the fortieth president's role in ending the cold war, in a provocative report that challenges popular beliefs, reveals lesser-known aspects of the Reagan administration's foreign policy, and cites the contributions of such figures as Nixon, Kissinger, and Gorbachev.