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For immediate release:
October 12, 2004

Carnegie Mellon Professor's Final Reagan Book Reveals How the 40th President Shaped His Message

Kiron Skinner

PITTSBURGH—Four months after America said goodbye to the late President Ronald Reagan, a collection of his writings co-edited by Kiron Skinner, assistant professor of history and political science at Carnegie Mellon University, demonstrates how the Great Communicator developed the vision that earned him the presidency and transformed U.S. foreign and domestic policy.

"Reagan's Path To Victory: The Shaping Of Ronald Reagan's Vision: Selected Writings" is a collection of essays Reagan wrote between 1975 and 1979 for his syndicated daily radio show. The essays reveal Reagan's thoughts on a range of issues from health care policy to nuclear power to the Cold War and shed light on the campaign tactics that would propel Reagan to the White House in 1980. The book was edited by Skinner and Annelise and Martin Anderson, who are fellows at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. The essays are arranged in chronological order, and for each broadcast year, the editors include an essay on how Reagan demonstrated his abilities to become president. "Reagan's Path To Victory" will be published October 19 by Free Press.

Skinner and the Andersons have co-edited four previous books of Reagan's writings, including "Reagan: A Life in Letters" and "Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America."

"'Reagan's Path to Victory' is unique among the suite of books on Reagan's writings that I have co-edited in a specific and important sense: It uses archival evidence to carefully ground the argument that Reagan's writings in the late 1970s are central to demystifying his landslide victory in the 1980 presidential race," Skinner said. "It is, in effect, the game plan for Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign—a plan that Reagan himself wrote."

The American Compass Book Club, the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Conservative Book Club and the History Book Club have chosen "Reagan's Path to Victory" as an alternate selection.

Skinner, the director of the International Relations program at Carnegie Mellon, is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. A protégé of Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, Skinner is on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, the National Security Education Board and the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel.