Unfortunately I don't have a ready reply, but I am bookmarking this. I'm sure we'll end up with lots of good recommendations! Thanks for posting.
bump for watching
His autobiography, An American Life is excellent and I think kids can learn a lot from it. Lou Cannon's book is good, but I don't think kids need so much of the behind the scenes political wrangling stories and all of that. If they want the principles, both philosophical, and strategic, of his attitudes about the world, about handling people, about leading, then I recommend his own words.
"Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader" by Dinesh D'Souza
"When Character Was King" by Peggy Noonan
It's published by Dorling Kindersley.
Regards, Ivan
I'm gonna purchase a few of these the day that Clinton's comes out.
That would be awesome if books on Reagan outsold his!
Dinesh D'Souza's book is one of the better ones.
If you wish to learn RR's plan to end the cold war I would recommend "Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union"
by Peter Schweizer
For a good understanding of Reagan the man, I highly recommend "Dutch" by Edmund Morris. While it was initially panned by some hard core Reaganites when it was first released (even by those who admittedly hadn't read it) partly because it was written in the unique style of the author creating a fictitious first person whose life path crossed from time to time with Reagan and partly because it dared to suggest that Reagan wasn't perfection incarnate, the book was, overall, quite complementary of Reagan. For instance, while the democrats and other lefties have always suggested that Reagan was a political airhead, you learn in the book that Reagan was extremely oriented towards politics and political debate from early on - so much so that during his film career in the 1950s, he got the reputation of being a bit of a bore at Hollywood parties because he always wanted to get into detailed and technical political discussions. It's a good, colorful, entertaining read that certainly gave me added respected for the man.
The Bible.................
See if you can find a copy of "Speaking My Mind", which is a collection of Reagan's important speeches -- while it won't be enough by itself, having it will help put the insider and historical texts into sharper relief.
Read the commentary at Amazon.
bookmark --bump
Reagan's 40 Year War on Communism. (maybe a slightly different title.
This book details why Reagan thought how he did about Commies. It details his time in Hollywood and his fights against the comies in the SAG union.
Any Reagan lover or hater should read it because you will understand everything he did as President because of his past.
You will even learn that his first marriage broke up over his anti-commie stance hurting his wife's career.
I would also read Charlie's War, which not about Reagan, it tells how we defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan over the wishes of the CIA, State dept, Defense dept, and Congress, by the sheer will power of a single congressman from Texas, Charlie Wilson, and an outsider CIA man Gus Avrokostos (sp).
Those two books together will tell you how Reagan came to fight Commies and how it ended so quickly for the Soviets.