Sean Wilentz may have titled his book "The Age of Reagan" for the same reason that Al Franken named his work of a decade ago "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Idiot."

A book that capitalizes on a popular name is likely to sell better than a volume more accurately called "A History, 1974-2008."

I finished this book feeling that I had suffered from a bait-and-switch scam. What Wilentz provides is a thoughtful liberal's review and analysis of national politics from the last days of the Nixon administration through the 2008 Super Tuesday primaries.

Wilentz is a professor of history at Princeton, and his book would make a great primary text for a college course on contemporary American politics. Its unrelenting focus on White House and Capitol Hill maneuvering make it a tough slog for readers not in pursuit of a grade, however.

Reagan's eight years as president get the most coverage, but Wilentz didn't persuade me that he was the prime actor of his era, remaking both the country and the policies of his predecessors and successors.

Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were not Reagan conservatives. Nixon imposed wage-and-price controls, opened relations with China and pursued detente with the Soviet Union. Ford proposed an income tax surcharge on high-income people and on oil company profits.

President Carter was conservative compared to Lyndon Johnson, but he was not voicing "me, too" positions in his 1980 re-election race against Reagan.

George H.W. Bush began to stray from Reagan's agenda as soon as he won in 1988 what was, admittedly, the equivalent of a third term for Reagan.

Bill Clinton's policies of triangulation had few links to Reagan's core beliefs. While some of the same faces show up in the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations, George W. Bush has a different governing style and different priorities.

Reagan ran on a clear agenda. Wilentz describes how artfully he worked with a Republican Senate and a House coalition of GOP members and conservative Democrats to achieve two of his three major goals: cutting taxes and boosting defense.

He credits the 40th president with two other important victories.

Reagan's "success in helping finally to end the Cold War is one of the greatest achievements by any president of the United States."

And, by uniting social conservatives and economic libertarians, Reagan fostered a political coalition that helped to win five out of the past seven presidential races.

As for his other efforts -- shrinking the federal government, reducing the total tax bite, reviving the economy, encouraging traditional values and building U.S. influence in the Middle East, Asia and Central America -- Wilentz assigns Reagan a gentleman's "C" at best.

Every president will have a mixed record, but it's a stretch to argue that Reagan's economic policies did not play a major role in reviving an economy that had been wracked by almost a decade of stagflation -- low growth, high unemployment and high inflation.

Inflation was 12 percent when Reagan took office in 1981, and unemployment was 7.2 percent. When he left eight years later, inflation had dropped to 4.4 percent (and was headed lower) and unemployment was at 5.5 percent. The misery index -- the sum of inflation and unemployment rates -- had been cut in half.

Wilentz saves his highest praise for Bill Clinton and his mixture of "political brilliance and achievement followed by personal and political crises."

Clinton's policies, he writes, reduced poverty, cut crime, boosted family incomes, revived FDR's New Deal, raised U.S. international prestige and eliminated deficits.

Why didn't he just call the book "The Age of Clinton"?