When Ronald Reagan campaigned for the presidency in 1980 at the age of sixty-nine, his hardline views were already widely known. Supporters admired him for his clarity of vision, especially on the twin evils of big government at home and communism abroad. But to others, he came across as an extremist. One of Reagan’s friends noted that he had to overcome widespread fears that he was ‘a right-wing nut with horns growing out of his ears’. As the columnist George F Will put it, many Americans feared a Reagan victory would see ‘the barbarians coming over the gate’.

How times have changed. While Reagan himself has gone down in political lore as a unifying figure who transcended the partisan divide, Republicans have kept moving further and further to the right – so much so that Reagan’s legacy now sits at odds with the party he led to power. John Boehner, a self-proclaimed Reaganite who was ousted by the Republican Party as speaker of the House of Representatives in 2015 for not being conservative enough, would know. ‘I love all these knuckleheads talking about the party of Reagan,’ Boehner said in reference to his fellow Republicans. ‘He would be the most moderate Republican elected today.’

Right-wing nut or genial moderate? Partisan extremist or national treasure? Which was the real Reagan? As Max Boot observes in his exhaustive but intelligent, elegant and engrossing biography, Reagan built his political career on a careful balancing act: he was all of the above, but not all of the time.

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