Landslide

The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988

By: Jane Mayer, Doyle McManus

Narrated by: Kirsten Potter

The explosive tale of the unraveling of an American president.

For six years, Ronald Reagan seemed invincible. But behind the glowing image of success was an administration courting disaster. In this spellbinding book, two top Washington reporters trace the origins of the Iran-Contra affair and the unraveling of the Reagan presidency, taking us deep inside a white house that cared more for stagecraft than statecraft and that mistook a landslide reelection for an unlimited mandate.

Here is the startling illumination of power and personality, an explosive tale of a president’s unmaking - and a landmark book about the current state of the American presidency.

©2018 Jane Mayer, Doyle McManus (P)2020 Graymalkin Media LLC

Behind all the talking

I was a pre-teen and teenager during the Reagan presidency, and because of my young age I wasn't processing or evening thinking about politics all that much. I listened to this book in hopes of filling in knowledge gaps - it did far more than that. The story reads like fiction, to the point where you have to remind yourself, "No, that really happened," and "Yes, that person honestly thought they were doing the right thing, and that they could get away with it." It's truly mind-blowing. Even writing this review, I'm at a loss for words to describe how dumbfounded I was by so much of the behavior, and so much of the thought process that went into justifying many of the actions described in this book.

Great reporting

Well written book. Narration could be grating and annoying at times. A little too dramatic