"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem," - Ronald Reagan's inaugural address, January 20, 1981.

For the first 50 years after the onset of the Great Depression and the election of Franklin Roosevelt, the United States had been led by politicians who believed government held the power to make life better for the American people. Then came Ronald Reagan, one of the most talented political orators in American history. Follow along as Reagan rises from the great depression to realize his dreams in Hollywood, then takes his talents into politics, where he upends a half-century of big-government consensus and pivots the United States toward a small-government future.

Bibliography
1. Ronald Reagan: The life – H.W. Brands
2. Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush – Jon Meacham
3. His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life – Jonathan Alter
4. Gerald Ford – Douglas Brinkley
5. Richard Nixon, the life – John A. Farrell

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When unemployment and inflation began to rise side by side in the 1970s, nobody knew what to do. Economic theory suggested it should have been impossible, and yet the numbers couldn't be denied. Stanford Historian Jennifer Burns, author of Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative, discusses how American presidents of the 70's tried and failed to curb stagflation, what led Carter to Paul Volcker, and how Volcker's medicine may have saved the economy, but doomed Carter's presidency in the process.

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It's commonly accepted wisdom that presidents are less effective in their second terms, when the term limits of the 22nd amendment turn them into Lame Ducks who cannot be elected to office a third time.

But what if that common wisdom is wrong?

Former NYU economics professor William Silber, author of The Power of Nothing to Lose: The Hail Mary Effect in Politics, War and Business, argues that lame ducks only appear less effective because, with nothing left to lose, they pursue goals that are more ambitious and more difficult. And nothing-to-lose, gamble-it-all-on-the-win behavior can also be seen in presidential campaigns when candidates trail badly in the polls or fear a defeat will end their careers.

With two former presidents on the ballet this fall, Silber forecasts what to expect from the campaigns and potential administrations of the contendors.

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