The notes Ronald Reagan's private collection of stories and wisdom

Historian Brinkley edited The Reagan Diaries (2008) and now has at another handwritten artifact recently discovered in the late president's personal archive. It is a collection of note cards on which Reagan jotted quotations by political and philosophical figures in history and his own times plus a separate set of cards with jokes and one-liners on them. Apparently assembled in the course of Reagan's public-speaking career, first as a GE spokesperson, then as a politician, the texts on these cards, Brinkley says, appeared in one Reagan declamation or another. That fact affords insight through this volume into how the Great Communicator spiced up his speeches while also showing readers the note cards as distillations of Reagan's conservative political precepts. While most aphorisms Reagan copied resonated with his views on taxation, the welfare state, and free enterprise, he also wrote down, no doubt for use as foils in his talks, statements with which he would have disagreed by figures ranging from liberals to communists to fascists. Researchable by historians, pleasing to Reagan fans, The Notes certainly will circulate.--Taylor, Gilber. Copyright 2010 Booklist

In 2010, researchers at the Reagan Library discovered a box of index cards containing jokes, literary quotes, and excerpts from speeches written in Reagan's own hand and arranged under rubrics such as "On Liberty," "On War," and "On the People." Rice University history professor Brinkley, who also edited The Reagan Diaries, suggests Reagan began collecting these as spokesman for General Electric beginning in 1954 and continuing until his death in 2004. Readers uncertain if Reagan hated taxes ("Justice O. W. Holmes: "Keep govt. poor and remain free") and communism (Pravda: the communist program is "all embracing & all bloodsoaked reality"), or if he loved God, liberty, and the Constitution (Daniel Webster: "if the const. shall fail there will be anarchy throughout the world") will find answers here. Even the jokes show a conservative bent. The squibs are from sources as far-ranging as Dale Carnegie, Solzhenitsyn, G.K. Chesterton, and even Chairman Mao (on marriage). Admirers will find plenty to admire in these jottings and nothing to change their view of Reagan, but rather confirmation of the vision they already have. 9 b&w photos. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.