Taking his cue from Frederick Lewis Allen, author of "Only Yesterday," his 1931 look backward to the America of 1919, Gil Troy reconstructs the nation in the 1980s, the era of Ronald Reagan.

	"MORNING IN AMERICA: HOW RONALD REAGAIN INVENTED THE 1980s" By Gil Troy Princeton University Press ($29.95)

Not a pretty picture as the decade began -- inflation, high interest rates, unemployment and a sagging national spirit -- a "malaise" in the air.

Troy's fictional couple, "The Smiths," were a childless working couple mired in the "stagflation" of 1980 and vaguely disappointed in Jimmy Carter.

Then, from out of the West came Reagan. His upbeat demeanor, cheerleading speeches and beaming Hollywood smile instilled a mood of hope and pride, writes Troy, a McGill University professor, and the Smiths voted for him.

"Like the B-movies he starred in, like the TV soap-operas that would prove so popular during his tenure, Ronald Reagan was a man of standard formats, reassuring Americans by following the scripts the loved," Troy says.

But like those scripts, there was much about the Reagan years that was fantasy and hype, he adds.

Other forces were at work during the decade, working for and against the president's foreign and domestic policies. The promises of a balanced federal budget, deregulation, free trade, reduced taxes and a dominant foreign policy would have to wait.

It would be his successors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who would more effectively put Reagan's ideas into practice.

Creating his chapters from key events of the '80s in various cities around the country, Troy presents a far more complicated nation than Reagan painted in his speeches.

The president floated above the social turmoil, stuck to his simplistic opposition to Communist countries and spent most of his workday personally answering letters from citizens.

The Iran-Contra misadventure, most of which Reagan couldn't "recall," revelations that his wife depended on an astrologer, a stock market decline and stubborn budget deficit darkened his reputation in his last years.

In retirement, Reagan's poignant admission that he had Alzheimer's disease -- Troy describes it as "The Marlboro Man in the Age of Oprah" -- began his restoration, culminating in the lengthy funeral proceedings of last year.

Reagan is "the greatest president since Franklin Roosevelt," Troy believes, because he saved the presidency from "irrelevance."

"Like it or hate it, like him or hate him, nearly twenty-five years after the Reagan inauguration, Ronald Reagan's legacy continues to define this country."