Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years [Paperback]

Haynes Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 1992

This national best-seller brilliantly analyzes America in the 1980s from the election of Ronald Reagan through to the end of the decade.  The author points a vivid portrait not only of Reagan's presidency, but also of the Iran-Contra affair, the boom times on Wall Street and the religious revival led by Swaggart, Bakker et al.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Washington Post columnist Johnson here presents a stunning indictment of the Reagan administration that details its impact on social, economic and political life in America. He reviews abuses in the S&L institutions, in HUD, in the National Security Council, on Wall Street, in religious broadcasting and, most impressively, reveals how the administration renounced responsibility for ameliorating social distress. The book makes clear why the rich got richer and the poor poorer in the last decade. Johnson portrays President Reagan as a kind of Dr. Feelgood who fulfilled a public need for reassurance, and ironically evaded judgment during the Iran- contra affair because of his reputation for not being in charge. Summarizing what he sees as Reagan's legacy, the "ethical wastland of the eighties," the author points to growing fractionalization, subversion of the constitutional system, corruption and ineffectiveness of government, and cynicism and inattention of the American people. First serial to Vanity Fair.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A stunning indictment of the Reagan administration that details its impact on social, economic and political life in America."--Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (February 23, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385422598
• ISBN-13: 978-0385422598
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,667,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Resisting the deification of Ronald Reagan, July 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years (Paperback)

While Georgia representative Bob Barr continues to wage a war to name at least one national monument in every state for Ronald Reagan, including the Washington Metro airport stop, a few historians have maintained a more skeptical look at the defining moments of the Reagan presidency.

The Reagan papers were scheduled to be released on June 21 of this year. Barring access to them, this is one of the very few books that attempts to tell a story of a presidency without gushing like a teenage girl with a crush. A great man can withstand critical scrutiny, and Haynes Johnson has given Reagan that chance---and finds Reagan coming up short of the lyrical reviews by Peggy Noonan and others.

If you want some substance for your next discussion over the deficit legacy, Star Wars, and Iran-contra---useful since many of the participants are alive, well, and in power today---you should find this book interesting, regardless of your actual politics.

53 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Johnson dissects an era's political & social collapse., November 21, 1999

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years (Paperback)

Johnson has a hard-hitting and incisive critique of the lax, hands-off approach Reagan took to handling the ills of his age. It's not news that the Iran-contra affair further soured respect for government, that economic policies designed to make the rich richer also made the poor much poorer, that a pattern of denial and deception in Reagan's staff was the standard approach to dealing with the media or the Congress. Johnson admits Reagan's power as a President, but is sharply critical of much of what he accomplished through that strength. Anyone strongly sympathetic with his legacy probably ought not to look at this book; it will anger you. Others who are interested should see it. You will not have the full story of the 80s by any means; Johnson is selective about what he discusses (neither Canada nor Lebanon are indexed at the end, and AIDS is discussed on one page). But on what he does cover, like the Iran-contra scandal, and junk bonds, Johnson is thorough. I picked up the book to review the Iran-contra affair, and its reporting satisfied me. Col. Oliver North had nothing but contempt for the members of Congress who challenged him on his lies and subterfuge; that contempt was validated by Reagan's own contempt for laws he did not like or wish to enforce. (Johnson points out that Reagan appointed individuals hostile to the intent of the agency they were overseeing if he disagreed with what the agency was doing, like the Dept. of Education or the EPA.) This book was published in early 1991, and it is worthwhile to consider the parallel problems that Clinton had with the Congress late in his administration, for very different reasons. Every president since Kennedy seems to have developed an undertow towards the end of his term or terms, one that damaged the premises of his presidency; Kennedy escaped his through his early death. One wonders what the upcoming administrations will do to try to counter that effect.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CAREFUL, OBJECTIVE, THE FACTS WITHOUT COMMENT FROM A TRUE PROFESSIONAL GENTLEMAN JOURNALIST HISTORIAN/ THE TRUTH OF REAGAN/BUSH, June 28, 2007

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years (Paperback)

This good book provides a healthy and bracing antidote to the recently forged Reagan Diary hoax, although this book seems soft on REagan, Bush, Ollie North and the rest. But that is simply the author's professional and gentle style from an earlier age of journalism, long before the rage of Hannity, Coulter and O'Reilly, when Rush was still an oddity and an anomaly, when journalism was not yet mere slap down steel cage entertainment but the scholarly presentation of historical facts clearly and concisely, as in this book, as in Murrow, as in IF Stone.

This book contains the facts of that age, objectively written by a trained journalist and historian and a true professional and gentleman with full access to all parties, the objective truth and facts about the long national nightmare which was and still is the Reagan/Bush dynastic regime, from which we as a nation still struggle to awaken and may never succeed.

As you can see I would prefer a little more polemic on the part of the author, but he is a skilled professional correctly concerned with maintaining his access to all parties and yet presenting the truth. Thus, while restraining himself from commenting directly nor editorializgin at length regarding the phenomena of that time, he skillfully does so indirectly through quotes from the players and writers of that age. We therefore read the harshest words regarding Reagan coming from the mouth of none other than Dick Cheney, quoted at great length. Haynes can wear the velvet glove and fine demeanor, and let others speak the truth no matter whom it disturbs from their eager slumber.

THe most telling section comes near the end with a closing factual summation of the effects of the Reagan administration, moving us from our position as the world's greatest lender nation to its deepest debtor nation, a depth of debt ever spiralling downwards, the destruction of our industrial and our agricultrural base, the destruction of our technological research and development, the destruction of our moral base as a nation from the largesse and self sacrifice called for so effectively by President Kennedy to the lust and unregulated greed under Reagan. We see the facts, gently presented of all of the Reagan scandals, noted by Haynes Johnson calmly in passing without outrage we might expect now, like a bored tour guide might indicate the town square stone, but letting us read the horrors there written.

For this is the teflon journalist. He points out the truth of the horror and the mud and the corruption and the dirt, but none of it sticks to him. He is too clever for that. Yet we read between the lines and we read directly the lines and we see the truth of that horrendous administration.

We must read again this book and remember the truth, for we have fallen far more deeply and we cannot get up. Whereas Reagan cut taxes and went into debt to fund his military nmonstrosities and absurdities, we go far more deeply into dept to fund an unfounded yet endless war in Iraq, consuming officially $86 billion every six months, but actually much much more for no clear nor strategic reason. We have lost nearly four thousands officially counted servicemen and women, yet actually much much more, including in civilians, women and children murdered, for what purpose.

Thus this book with its modest figures of corruption, administrative negligence and wasteful military spending bankrupting us for generations to come as our infrastructure collapses and melts down, seems like small change compared to what is happening now. Read this book, read the facts, and you will see. Reagan played Nero to the current Caligula.

Excellent book requiring space in every school library and in every truly patriotic American home. Well written, judicious, careful and correct.