Reagan is probably one of our most controversial presidents where he is adored on the right and vilified on the left. I was wondering if there was a good biography(-ies) or histor (-ies) of his presidency that capture the whole spectrum.
There's a large volume of histories on the Reagan presidency/era. Many are good, and many are crap. Here's only a handful of some of the major ones.
If you're looking for a comprehensive history the best place to go is still Lou Cannon's Role of a Lifetime. It's a big book, so if you're looking for something a bit more concise Michael Schaller's Ronald Reagan is also really good. If you want something more recent and more academic than Cannon's, the best book is The Reagan Presidency, edited by W. Elliott Brownlee and Hugh David Graham, although it's expensive ($35). This book isn't a single narrative; it's a series of essays by different scholars on different subjects about the Reagan presidency. Lastly, if you're wanting to place the Reagan presidency within the larger context of contemporary American history, two really good books for that are James Patterson's Restless Giant and Sean Wilentz' The Age of Reagan