Robert Fulton and the Steamboat.

HILL, Ralph Nading. [Ronald Reagan].

$850.00

Item Number: 137258

New York: Random House, 1954.

First edition of the author’s compelling work on the inventor of the world’s first commercially successful steamboat. Octavo, original cloth, pictorial endpapers, illustrated by Lee Ames. Signed by Ronald Reagan on the half-title page. Ronald Wilson Reagan served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and became a highly influential voice of modern conservatism. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975. When Reagan left office in 1989, he held an approval rating of 68%, matching those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later Bill Clinton, as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. He was the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to serve two full terms after the five prior presidents did not. Evaluations of his presidency among historians and the general public place him among the upper tier of American presidents. Near fine in a good dust jacket with some pen markings to the rear panel.

American engineer and inventor Robert Fulton is widely credited with developing a commercially successful steamboat which successfully changed river traffic and trade on major American rivers. In 1800, Fulton was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte to attempt to design a submarine and produced Nautilus, the first practical submarine in history.