Academic

The Ronald Reagan McDonalds! (Tuscaloosa, Alabama)

By propertyprof

While reading this review of Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz' The Age of Reagan over at Slate this morning, I saw a picture of President Reagan eating a big mac at ... the McDonalds on route 82 in Northport!  You know what?  I eat there, too, sometimes.  (The building Reagan ate in was knocked down a few years ago and then rebuilt.)  Rather unrepresentative photo, though; as I understand the story, it was the only McDonalds he ever ate at.  Never can tell when Tuscaloosa will appear in the national news!

I enjoyed Wilentz' article on "1967" in Rolling Stone a while back, although as I said at propertyprof last summer:

Wilentz locates 1967 as the start of the culture wars: free love & drugs vs. stability.  Locating major trends in American culture in a single year is always hard--though there have been some really successful books built around years (Kenneth Stampp's 1857; Louis Mazur's 1819 immediately come to mind.)  And while I would have emphasized more of the counter-culture and less of the conservative response were I fortunate enough to be writing for Rolling Stone, the essay's well worth a read.

And, hey, writing for Rolling Stone's  a big deal for an academic (or anyone else, I'd imagine).

The review's worth a read.  The conclusion is:

[H]e's still, in some sense, with us. By Wilentz's reckoning, the Reagan era has lasted longer than "the ages of Jefferson and Jackson; longer than the 'gilded' age or the Progressive era; and virtually as long as the combined era of the New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier, and Great Society." Which means that the GOP's happiest warrior can now be spoken of in the same breath as Jefferson and Jackson, as Lincoln and the Roosevelts.

Alfred Brophy

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).