The country celebrates Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday on February 6, 2011. The American Enterprise Institute’s Steven Hayward has written a celebrated two-volume biography of the 40th president, The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order: 1964-1980 and The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution: 1980-1989. He also has a new cover article in National Review explaining the respect President Obama and other prominent American liberals have recently expressed for Reagan.

In honor of the centennial, Hayward sat for an interview to discuss Reagan’s extraordinary life, his triumphant political career, and what many liberals (and some conservatives, too) still fail to appreciate about a man who has become an American icon.

FURTHER READING: President Reagan gave AEI's 1988 Francis Boyer Lecture, entitled "Freedom and Vigilance." Hayward also recalls "The Berlin Wall, 20 Years Later." On the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth last year, Americans rated Reagan the country's greatest president. On Reagan's 88th birthday, Michael Novak commemorated him as a re-founding father in "Our Better Angels." Richard Perle details “How They Misjudged the Reagan I Knew.” Listen to “Rendezvous with Destiny: A Panel on Ronald Reagan” commemorating the 98th anniversary of Reagan’s birth.

Image by Rob Green/Bergman Group.