Ronald Reagan: 100 Years - Official Centennial Edition from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation

Collected by the Ronald Reagan Foundation, The Notes is a fascinating window into the mind of our fortieth president. While the #1 New York Times bestselling Reagan Diaries detailed daily life inside the Oval Office, The Notes encapsulates a lifetime of reflections on work, marriage, and family. Classic one-liners such as "Flattery is what makes husbands out of bachelors" and "Money may not buy friends, but it will help you to stay in contact with your children" shed light on the man known as the "Great Communicator," and a sampling of Reagan's favorite speeches, poems, and passages from literature reveal the writers and thinkers he turned to time and again for advice, inspiration, humor, and hope.

Historic, illuminating, and deeply captivating, The Notes is a remarkable collection of the thoughts of one of our most beloved presidents.

Through 150 striking color photographs, Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs charts the road to Barack Obama's nomination as the first African American to lead the presidential ticket of a major party. Announcing his campaign in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007, Obama stood on the grounds of the Old State Capitol, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous "House Divided" speech against slavery in 1858. During an eighteen-month campaign, from the snows of Iowa to the hunt for Democratic "superdelegates," this junior senator from Chicago confounded the party establishment and rewrote the playbook on modern presidential campaigning. This amazing collection of photographs captures the public and private moments of his journey, and offers a unique window into one of the great triumphs in American politics.

Many of Reagan's handwritten letters are among the most thoughtful, charming, and moving documents he produced. Long letters to his daughter Patti, applauding her honesty, and son Ron Jr., urging him to be the best student he can be, reveal Reagan as a caring parent. Long-running correspondence with old friends, carried on for many decades, reveals the importance of his hometown and college networks. Heartfelt advice on love and marriage, fond memories of famous friends from Hollywood, and rare letters about his early career allow Reagan to tell his own full biography as never before. Running correspondence with young African-American student Ruddy Hines reveals a little-known presidential pen pal. The editors also reveal that another long-running pen-pal relationship, with fan club leader Lorraine Wagner, was initially ghostwritten by his mother, until Reagan began to write to Wagner himself some years later.

It is a transforming time for everyone involved when an aging adult begins to require more assistance and care from loved ones. Little by little, as elderly adults are asked to let go of things they have always done or cherished, caregivers attempt to fill their lives with love, warmth, and security?all while blindly navigating through an uncertain time.

Martha Eischen has been there. Over the course of ten years, she was responsible for her mother?s total care. In Mothering Mother, she shares not only her perspective, but also practical advice and valuable resources as she leads other caregivers?both novice and experienced?down a road of compassion and complete understanding. Martha shares a deeply emotional story as she details her mother?s end-of-life journey and how she, in turn, learned how to provide personal care, partner with medical professionals, and deal with altered family dynamics. As she describes her life as a caregiver, she clearly identifies emotions, changes in roles, keys to keeping her mother active, and day-to-day care issues.

Mothering Mother is a loving, encouraging guidebook that will help caregivers everywhere fill the last days of a loved one?s life with love, security, and fond memories.

?As a caregiver and a professional in Aging, I found this wonderful book very uplifting. It reinforced all that I knew to be true. I was reminded, when the going gets tough, that the opportunity to do the giving is a treasure.? Ruth Mooney, PhD, MN, Nursing Research Facilitator, ChristianaCare Health System

Most of Reagan's original writings are pre-presidential. From 1975 to 1979 he gave more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts, two-thirds of which he wrote himself. They cover every topic imaginable: from labor policy to the nature of communism, from World War II to the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, from the future of Africa and East Asia to that of the United States and the world. They range from highly specific arguments to grand philosophy to personal stories.

Even those who knew him best were largely unaware of Reagan's output. George Shultz, as he explains in the Foreword, was surprised when he first saw the manuscripts, but on reflection he really was not surprised at all. Here is definitive proof that Ronald Reagan was far more than a Great Communicator of other people's ideas. He was very much the author of his own ideas, with a single vision that he pursued relentlessly at home and abroad.

Reagan, In His Own Hand presents this vision through Reagan's radio writings as well as other writings selected from throughout his life: short stories written in high school and college, a poem from his high school yearbook, newspaper articles, letters, and speeches both before and during the presidency. It offers many surprises, beginning with the fact that Reagan's writings exist in such size and breadth at all. While he was writing batches and batches of radio addresses, Reagan was also traveling the country, collaborating on a newspaper column, giving hundreds of speeches, and planning his 1980 campaign. Yet the wide reading and deep research self-evident here suggest a mind constantly at work. The selections are reproduced with Reagan's own edits, offering a unique window into his thought processes.

These writings show that Reagan had carefully considered nearly every issue he would face as president. When he fired the striking air-traffic controllers, many thought that he was simply seizing an unexpected opportunity to strike a blow at organized labor. In fact, as he wrote in the '70s, he was opposed to public-sector unions using strikes. There has been much debate as to whether he deserves credit for the end of the cold war; here, in a 1980 campaign speech draft, he lays out a detailed vision of the grand strategy that he would pursue in order to encourage the Soviet system to collapse of its own weight, completely consistent with the policies of his presidency. Furthermore, in 1984, Reagan drafted comments he would make to Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko at a critical meeting that would eventually lead to history's greatest reductions in armaments.