BEYOND REAGAN The New Landscape of American...

BEYOND REAGAN The New Landscape of American Politics by Jerry Hagstrom (Norton: $18.95)

The first wave of books about the Reagan presidency, published roughly between 1981 and ‘83, celebrated the victory of the conservative agenda and prophesied its long livelihood. The second wave basically had two currents--liberals attacking the President’s budget and conservatives celebrating the diffusion of neo-conservatism into society and popular culture. Now, in the face of mounting evidence that critical conservative goals--from taking over the Senate to prohibiting abortion and bringing prayer back into public schools--haven’t found broad support, a third wave of books is positing that maybe the revolution isn’t conservative after all; maybe it is essentially libertarian, composed of people opposed to government intervention in both the economy and in personal life. “Beyond Reagan,” written by a commentator for PBS’ McNeil-Lehrer News Hour and a contributing editor to the National Journal, is the best of these new books.

Hagstrom’s forte--whipping out relevant statistics with alacrity to show how the economy shapes America--is also his weakness. While the economy is certainly the most important political force in America, Hagstrom sometimes overestimates its power. He states, for example, that the Reagan revolution “began” in 1978, when Californians passed the Proposition 13 tax cut by overwhelming margins. Americans’ need to respect their country once again after defeats at home and abroad in the 1970s, however, won Reagan at least as many votes as frustration over bloated tax rates. Hagstrom’s division of the nation into seven socioeconomic regions is revelatory nevertheless, avoiding the oversimplification that’s par for the course in most typologies. He realizes, for instance, that baby boomers are not a “solid bloc”: “They are the audience for both Rambo and Platoon.” Hagstrom sees bleak short-term prospects for some of these regions, from the manufacturing states of the Great Lakes to poor rural areas in the South (suffering terribly as commodity prices fall and low wage plants move to take advantage of cheaper labor overseas). “Beyond Reagan,” however, is consistently brightened by hope; the language Hagstrom uses, for instance, suggests that recovery is possible, from the “dynamism and audacity of Los Angeles” to the “triumph of individualism and democracy in New England.”