About this item
The executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal chronicles the astonishing rise, climax, and decline of one of the great political movements in American history - the forty-year reign of the conservative movement, from the election of Ronald Reagan to the Republican Party's takeover by Donald Trump.In 1980, President-Elect Ronald Reagan ushered in conservatism as the most powerful political force in America. For four decades, New Deal liberalism had been the country's dominant motif, creating such popular programs as Social Security and Medicare, but it had become creaky in the face of soaring inflation, high unemployment, and a growing sense that the United States was no longer the dominant force on the world stage. Reagan's efforts to reshape the government with tax cuts, deregulation, increased military spending, and a more conservative social policy faltered at first.
About the Author
Gerald F. Seib is the executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, where he writes the weekly "Capital Journal" column. Previously the Washington bureau chief of the Journal, he reported on the Middle East for the Journal in the early 1980s, and covered the White House from 1987 through 1992. He has moderated three presidential debates, and interviewed every president since Ronald Reagan. He won the Merriman Smith Award for coverage of the presidency, the Aldo Beckman Award for coverage of the White House, and the Gerald R. Ford Foundation Prize. He was part of a team of reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize in the breaking news category for their coverage of 9/11. In 2005, he won the William Allen White Foundation national citation, and in 2009 the National Press Club's award for political analysis. He appears as an analyst on CNBC, Fox News, PBS's Washington Week, CBS's Face the Nation and NBC's Meet the Press. With CNN's John Harwood, he wrote Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power.
