He was great for America in a lot of ways. As great as he was, he also was terrible for America in some ways. There was a lot of economic growth during his felt by many Americans. That was why it was termed the 'Reagan years.' However, the division between the wealthy and the poor grew as well. He focused on growth without focusing on any sacrifice for future generations. That did our country a great harm. I think this is a good overview (without focusing too much on either the pros and cons of his presidency or going into too much detail):

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/40_reagan/reagan_foreign.html


>>>You can't earn a PhD in politics on something seriously unimportant, can you? And being a Kremlinologist was a profitable career - there were so many of them in quite high places.
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>>I seem to recall that when Reagan was Prez., Gorbichov's wife was reputed to have earned a degree in Communism from Moscow U. To which someone in the Reagan Govt. responded with something along the line of, "Having a degree in Communism is the equivalent of having a dog license in the USA."
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>Yet his administration had loads of exactly those guys on fat salaries :).
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>Update: on second thought, he does strike me just as the guy to whom Country Joe and The Fish would have dedicated a song while he was the gov'nar of California. He didn't have any respect for the enemy - where's the chivalry? The above quote sounds so redneck.