By the end of the 1980s, many Americans looked at the state of the nation with a renewed optimism, which was personified by an enduring American president - Ronald Wilson Reagan. The essays in this volume revisit the 1980s in order to examine the factors that contributed to his political and cultural triumphs and assess his legacy.

Introduction; C.Hudson& G. Davies PART I: PERCEPTIONS Ronald Reagan: Communicating the America Within; D.Rather Only an Actor: Memories of a Reagan Biopic; G.Hodgson 'Just Say No': Drug Abuse Policy in the Reagan Administration; P.G.Bourne Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War; J.F.Matlock, Jr. PART II: POLITICS AND POLICIES Reagan, Nuclear Weapons, and the End of the Cold War; S.Head Reaganomics and its Legacy; I.Morgan African American Protest during the Reagan Years: Forging New Agendas, Defending Old Victories; S.Tuck Reagan's Religious Right: The Unlikely Alliance between Southern Evangelicals and a California Conservative; D.K.Williams Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party: Responses to Realignment; R.Mason PART III: LEGACIES The Baptist and the Messiah: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher; D.Sandbrook Transforming the Presidency: The Administration of Ronald Reagan; J.D.Aberbach The Road to Mount Rushmore: The Conservative Commemoration Crusade for Ronald Reagan; N.Bjerre-Poulsen Toward a Historiography of Reagan and the 1980s: Why Have We Done Such a Lousy Job?; G.Troy Epilogue: Ronald Reagan and the Historians; M.J.Heale