Why the surge of interest in Ronald Reagan? 

Now that it's a truth universally acknowledged that RR was a great--even his enemies would cop to "consequential"--president, the MSM culture is finally doing the sort of close journalistic/historical spadework and chronicling of his presidency that they didn't bother with back in the 80s; except, of course, for scandal-mongering. 

The title of this new book in question, Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of President Reagan, speaks to the natural drama of historical watershed, while the title of this article is a play on William Manchester's 1967 book, Death of a President, about the Kennedy assassination.