The Essential Ronald Reagan recounts--in a concise way--the extraordinary life and career of a great American president from his small-town Midwestern roots through his Hollywood film star days to his presidential role as redeemer of the American dream and victorious leader in the Cold War. Renowned historian Lee Edwards captures Ronald Reagan perfectly and concisely. Edwards shows how Reaganomics confounded the Keynesian "experts" and produced the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. he details how President Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot--and reveals his "secret weapon" in summit negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Calling upon his four decades of observing and analyzing Ronald Reagan, Edwards provides many intimate details about the last president--such as the five books that helped transform Reagan from a liberal Democrat into a conservative Republican and how the attempted assassination strengthened Reagan's deeply rooted faith. Edwards, who has taught politics at the Catholic University of America for nearly two decades, borrows from his classroom experience to grade the best and worst books about Ronald Reagan. Fifteen years after leaving the White House, Ronald Reagan is already ranked among our greatest presidents by the American people and an increasing number of historians and political scientists. In The Essential Ronald Reagan, Edwards analyzes the four essential qualities of leadership that enabled President Reagan to meet every challenge and crisis and to make him an American "for the ages."