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Work #1365 · Late

The Reagan Diaries

Ronald W. Reagan
1981-89; 2007 (published) · English
Presidential diary · American conservatism

Reagan's 1981-89 presidential diaries

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute The Reagan Diaries (Late)
Time · Extent Finite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Finite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Personal
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Discrete

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

The Reagan Diaries

Diary entries 1981-1989; book publication 2007 (six years after Reagan's 2004 death, before Nancy Reagan's 2016 death).

Space

The Reagan Diaries

White House composition; subsequent Brinkley editing at the Eisenhower Center; transnational subsequent scholarly-and-popular readership.

Matter

The Reagan Diaries

The daily presidential business of the Reagan administration, the four Reagan-Gorbachev summits, domestic policy, the assassination attempt and recovery, family-religious-personal dimensions.

Observer

The Reagan Diaries

Reagan as serving President writing in his own hand; the only twentieth-century American President to keep so extensive a contemporaneous presidential diary.

Energy

The Reagan Diaries

Personal-confessional, presidential-decision-making, late-Cold-War-historical energies.

Information

The Reagan Diaries

Hand-written daily diary entries, typically a paragraph or two; combines policy-business, family-personal, religious-reflective, and ceremonial-presidential material; edited and lightly annotated by Brinkley.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

The Reagan Diaries

The Reagan Diaries significantly altered the historical-scholarly assessment of Reagan toward a more substantive and engaged figure than his hostile-critic caricature had supposed. They remain among the most-consulted primary sources for late-Cold-War American political history.