Prominent Reagan Biographer Accuses Another of Plagiarism

Craig Shirley, a prominent biographer of Ronald Reagan, has accused historian Rick Perlstein of plagiarism in his new book, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. Shirley has cited 45 instances in which he says Perlstein uses information and passages from his 2004 book, Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All, without proper attribution.

“We think it is unlikely that Mr. Perlstein even could have completed his book without Mr. Shirley’s book,” Chris Ashby, Shirley’s lawyer, said in a July 25 letter to Simon & Schuster, Perlstein’s publisher.