Books, Arts & Manners

An American Life, by Ronald Reagan (Simon & Schuster, 718 pp., $24.95)

PRESIDENT REAGAN is not, as he tells us, an introspective man. There is nothing confessional about this autobiography, no early traumas revealed, no great agonies of soul flaunted. That is not to say that Mr. Reagan conceals the disappointments and defeats inseparable from every life. On the contrary. In the early passages covering his childhood and education, he is candid about his family’s poverty (which compelled them to move house several times), his father’s business failures and alcoholism, his disappointment in early love, and his difficulties in sports and at school.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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An American Life, by Ronald Reagan (Simon & Schuster, 718 pp., $24.95)

PRESIDENT REAGAN is not, as he tells us, an introspective man. There is nothing confessional about this autobiography, no early traumas revealed, no great agonies of soul flaunted. That is not to say that Mr. Reagan conceals the disappointments and defeats inseparable from every life. On the contrary. In the early passages covering his childhood and education, he is candid about his family’s poverty (which compelled them to move house several times), his father’s business failures and alcoholism, his disappointment in early love, and his difficulties in sports and at school.