The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War

by James Mann

In The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan, NY Times bestselling author James Mann directs his keen analysis to Ronald Reagan’s role in ending the Cold War. Drawing on new interviews & previously unavailable documents, Mann offers a fresh & compelling narrative—a new history assessing what Reagan did, & didn't do, to help bring America’s four-decade conflict with the Soviet Union to a close. As he did so masterfully in Rise of the Vulcans, Mann sheds new light on the hidden aspects of American foreign policy. He reveals previously undisclosed secret messages between Reagan & Moscow; internal White House intrigues; & battles with leading figures such as Nixon & Kissinger, who repeatedly questioned Reagan’s unfolding diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev. He details the background & fierce debate over Reagan’s famous Berlin Wall speech & shows how it fit into Reagan’s policies. Ultimately, Mann dispels the facile stereotypes of Reagan in favor of a levelheaded, cogent understanding of a determined president & his strategy. This book finally answers the troubling questions about Reagan’s actual role in the crumbling of Soviet power; & concludes that by recognizing the significance of Gorbachev, Reagan helped bring the Cold War to a close.

Genres: History, Politics, Biography, Presidents, Nonfiction, Russia, American History

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

James Mann is the author of six books on American politics and national security issues, including Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet and The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power. A longtime correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, he is currently a fellow in residence at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd previously read Mann's The Rise of the Vulcans, liked it, so picked this up for some insight into the Reagan administration. On this, albeit with a very narrow focus, Mann delivers. Basically, what this is is a detailed description of how Ronald Reagan, in opposition to his political base and to most of his staff, switched from being a hawk to becoming a dove in disarmament negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev.

While confirming the usual liberal estimation of Reagan as lazy, poorly educated, slow-witted-if-not-senile and so on, Mann's picture of the president is not entirely negative. Whatever his deficits, Reagan (and wife Nancy) was genuinely concerned about world peace.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan, NY Times bestselling author James Mann directs his keen analysis to Ronald Reagan’s role in ending the Cold War. Drawing on new interviews & previously unavailable documents, Mann offers a fresh & compelling narrative—a new history assessing what Reagan did, & didn't do, to help bring America’s four-decade conflict with the Soviet Union to a close. As he did so masterfully in Rise of the Vulcans, Mann sheds new light on the hidden aspects of American foreign policy. He reveals previously undisclosed secret messages between Reagan & Moscow; internal White House intrigues; & battles with leading figures such as Nixon & Kissinger, who repeatedly questioned Reagan’s unfolding diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev. He details the background & fierce debate over Reagan’s famous Berlin Wall speech & shows how it fit into Reagan’s policies. Ultimately, Mann dispels the facile stereotypes of Reagan in favor of a levelheaded, cogent understanding of a determined president & his strategy. This book finally answers the troubling questions about Reagan’s actual role in the crumbling of Soviet power; & concludes that rather than stumbling and bumbling his way into a foreign policy win, by recognizing the significance of Gorbachev, Reagan helped bring the Cold War to a close by intentional design.

[Josh Lovvorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the past, as a died blue in the wool liberal, I would have scoffed at the idea of Reagan as good president. Afterall, the powers that be in the liberal establishment hark on the savings and loans scandels, the Iran-Contra affair, and the way the man took a hawkish stance to foreign policy. Furthermore, since casting my first vote for president in 2000, I had been hearing the unashamed hero worship of this man for the past 10 years. He is the standard against which all Repulicans compare each other and themselves. Every Republican primary becomes a goofy jockeyed to prove they are more like Reagan than anyone else. Therefore, one comes to equate all that is conservative to the man that is Ronald Reagan.

However, I think this book offers a chance to maybe take a different look at the former president. For one, I was surprised to find that the so-called hawk, doved later in his administration. I enjoyed hearing about the battles behind the scenes, during which Reagan lost his unwavering support from the far right, and indeed fell under their frequent attacks. This insight gives new light to the current climate of conservative American where such radically conservative personalities as Hannity and Coulter continue to hold the former president up as the quintessential conservative. In addition, over the years, I have heard many modern Republican and Conservative analysts insist that the Reagan push on military build up was an intentional attempt to force the USSR into an unsustainable arms race that would economically destabilize the nation enough to force changes. This book seems to call this explanation into question after examining the words and documents of former Reagan officials. These new insights into the former administration were certainly eye opening.

As far as the writing goes, the book is almost a random amalgamation of anecdotes and stories. As mentioned in other reviews, the author repeats himself often. Perhaps he meant this move to mirror the style of the book's subject, but it does more to exasperate the reader than anything else (one certainly begins to feel for Gorbachev). Furthermore, the book does seem to jump from time to time, and I would often have a go back a few pages because I thought I had missed something. Nevertheless, the book was worth the read for the chance to clarify my views on this former president.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early in his highly readable chronicle of Ronald Reagan's role in the end of the Cold War, Mann mentions how Reagan reused the Russian proverb "Trust, but verify," one of the few Russian phrases he knew, so often it annoyed Mikhail Gorbechev. Mann himself repeats Reagan's love of and use of this phrase so often that it becomes easy to see why Gorbechev got so annoyed.

This is one of the flaws in what is otherwise an excellent book. Mann repeats himself a lot, offering the same anecdotes and quotes multiple times, and includes each official's title every time their name seems to come up. He also spends a good deal of his space discussing how important the "tear down this wall" speech was, and while he makes a good case for how important any speech can be for any president, it does seem to be a ridiculously long section just to discuss how one speech works, even giving one chapter that is mostly a verbatim reprint of the speech, an act that caused me to drop my rating another star, when the sections detailing American and Soviet behind-the-scenes diplomacy were much more interesting.

That said, Mann's central premise that both the American left and right are wrong about Reagan's role in the end of the Cold War is a worthy one and he makes a strong case. This may not be the definitive book on Reagan and the Cold War, but given that Mann shows how great Reagan's policies were resisted by many who would do nothing but praise him today, I would think that alone would make this a must-read for anyone who has an interest in that time in American and world history.

[Henry Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Mann has written a very good book on Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War. Mann rejects both the triumphalist school and the school that says President Reagan was “an amiable dunce.” Reagan took the foreign policy of the US and the West in a direction that supported Gorbachev and “created the conditions” the led to the end of the Cold War. Although the reviewer does not agree with all of Mann’s conclusions, Mann has written a book that should be read by all scholars and students of Cold War history. Rating: 4.25/5

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tag line for the book is did Regan really end the Cold War or just be in the right place at the right time. Truth, as the author points out well so far, is somewhere in between. A fascinating look at a president whose been canonized inaccurately, more of a dove than a hawk in the administration's later years.

Review still stands -- pretty solid, fairly unbiased look at how a TV movie-of-the-week saved us all from nuclear war. It would appear Regan had the fortitude to extend a willing hand to Gorbachev and let him make the changes necessary to to transition USSR out of the Cold War. The book slightly condemns daddy Bush for initially being resistant and stand off'ish to Gorbachev, and insinuates that he was set to follow the old school GOP coalition, made up of Nixon and cronies, which would've used Gorbachev's precarious position as a failing leader to continue the Cold War.

In the end, it seems Regan made the necessary assist for Gorbachev to create the environment that in the end brought the Wall down and ended the Cold War.

Fascinating, especially when you think the same TV movie of the week that spooked me, spooked the POTUS ... except, he went and changed the world, and all I did was play with my Star Wars figures.

[Dana Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who was very apolitical in the 80's, my political education took a high-speed gear shift since marrying a very politically conservative fellow who worked for Reagan in the late 80's. Reagan is a fascinating individual from his anti-communist battles as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, to his tenuous initial dealings with the Soviet bloc and Gorbachev. His role in bringing down the Iron Wall, and who to trust during the new era of peristroika (versus Nixon and Kissinger's very vocal opposite opinions) was controversial then and even now, as history continues to catalogue the sequence and importance of specific events. I was enthralled with Mann's rendition of the facts that comprised his particular theory of the end of the Cold War and Reagan's role.

[Mark Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ronald Reagan! Genial gladhander of the 1980’s, America’s great golden age! The only true conservative! The man with an anecdote for every occasion-and sometimes they were even true! Was he a wily genius who single-handedly defeated the Soviet Union? Or a stooge who was overly reliant on his advisors and just happened to be president at the right time? The truth lies somewhere in the middle, as it usually does.

James Mann attempts to get closer to that truth in his 2009 book The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War. The book examines Reagan’s foreign policy towards the Soviet Union. Mann split the book into four sections that examine Reagan’s relationship with former president Richard Nixon, Reagan’s friendship with author Suzanne Massie, Reagan’s 1987 speech in West Berlin, in which he demanded “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and Reagan’s summit meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev.

During his first term in office, Ronald Reagan famously called the Soviet Union “an evil empire,” and said in a 1982 speech that “the march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history.” During his second term in office, Reagan held five summits with Mikhail Gorbachev, and on his 1988 visit to Moscow, when asked if he still thought the Soviet Union was “an evil empire,” he said, “I was talking about another time and another era.” How did this change happen? That’s one of the key questions that Mann attempts to answer.

While The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan is a fine book, and an interesting look at Reagan’s attitude towards the Soviet Union, Mann’s unorthodox organization ends up hampering the book. In the first section, about Reagan’s relationship with Richard Nixon, we go through Reagan’s presidency chronologically. Then with the next section, we’re back to 1984, and the first time Reagan met Suzanne Massie. Because we’re constantly jumping forwards and backwards in time, the book becomes more repetitive than it needs to be. I can understand why Mann organized the book this way; it makes sense to examine Reagan’s relationship with Nixon in one short essay, but I think a straight chronological approach would have helped the book overall.

The section on Nixon and Reagan is quite interesting. During Nixon’s presidency Reagan had opposed Nixon’s policy of détente towards the Soviet Union, but after the 1986 summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik, when the two leaders came close to agreeing to eliminate all nuclear weapons, Nixon attacked Reagan’s policies towards the Soviet Union, essentially accusing him of becoming too soft on communism. Nixon and Henry Kissinger wrote a joint editorial in April 1987 attacking Reagan’s Russian policies, and later that same month Nixon secretly met with Reagan in the White House. The meeting did not go well, and Nixon refused to back off on his criticism of Reagan.

For as much as the Republican party has deified Reagan since he left the White House in 1989, it’s very interesting to read about how many Republicans were angry about his policies towards the Soviet Union and Gorbachev during his second term in office. Conservative columnists like William F. Buckley, Jr., and George F. Will were both critical of any kind of arms limitation talks with the Soviets.

Section two of The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan takes a closer look at Reagan’s friendship with Suzanne Massie, the author of a 1980 book about Russia, Land of the Firebird. Massie wasn’t an academic historian, but she had made many trips to the Soviet Union, and her then-husband was Robert K. Massie, author of Nicholas and Alexandra, and the Pulitzer-Prize winning biography Peter the Great: His Life and World. Through contacts she had in Washington, D.C., Massie was able to meet with Reagan in January of 1984 to give him a report about life in the Soviet Union. For whatever reason, Reagan and Massie clicked, and she visited the White House many more times during Reagan’s second term. Massie carried back-channel messages between Reagan and the Soviet government, and she seems to have been an important influence on how he viewed the Russian people. Reagan dealt in the vernacular, in stories and anecdotes that would be easily relatable, and Massie was glad to supply him with her tales of life in Russia.

Reagan had a certain naiveté about the world, and the Soviet Union in particular. After Reagan had met with Soviet ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Dobrynin, he was shocked at Dobrynin’s cosmopolitan sophistication, and he asked, “Is he really a Communist?” (p.85) Mann makes it clear that Reagan’s naiveté also extended to Mikhail Gorbachev. While most American politicians thought that Gorbachev was no different from the previous occupants of the Kremlin, Reagan seems to have intuited pretty quickly that Gorbachev was in fact a very different kind of Soviet leader.

Reagan’s Soviet counterparts during his first term in office were a trio of arteriosclerotic old men: Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko. Reagan made token overtures to each leader, but no serious discussions of a summit meeting occurred with any of the three Soviet leaders. Andropov and Chernenko were both very seriously ill during their entire tenures as Soviet leaders, so there was little prospect of a summit meeting occurring. Although Reagan was actually older than both Andropov and Chernenko, he continued to project a healthy vigor.

Gorbachev realized that he needed an arms limitation treaty with the United States, in order to reduce the massive percentage of the Soviet budget that was going towards national defense. If Gorbachev hadn’t been so willing to strike a deal with Reagan, there might not have been the lessening of Cold War tensions that the world saw during Reagan’s second term. Reagan was extremely lucky that he was dealing with a Soviet leader who was more responsive to the West, and who was bent on reforming a Soviet system that was on the verge of collapse.

Reagan also had excellent support from his very intelligent and capable Secretary of State, George Shultz. It was Shultz who worked out the nuts and bolts of the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, and it was Shultz who took Reagan's generalities and crafted specific policies from them. Shultz was an integral part of the lessening of Cold War tensions during Reagan's second term. Even though Shultz turned 95 in December of 2015, he is still an articulate defender of Reagan's place in history.

Mann details all of the infighting in the Reagan administration concerning Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech, delivered on June 12, 1987, in West Berlin. While it’s now regarded as one of Reagan’s signature speeches, at the time, many members of the administration thought that the line should be toned down, as it might dissipate the goodwill that had been established between Reagan and Gorbachev. But Reagan was determined that the line should stay in the speech. Mann also chronicles the difficult dance that West Germany and East Germany were performing at the time, as German leaders on both sides were pressing for more economic agreements, much to the chagrin of their Western and Eastern allies.

In the last section of the book, Mann examines Reagan’s summit meetings with Gorbachev. For whatever reason, Mann doesn’t cover the 1985 Geneva summit or the 1986 Reykjavik summit in detail, which is an opportunity missed. He does provide a more thorough look at the 1987 summit in Washington, D.C., and the 1988 summit in Moscow. Reagan delivered one of his best quips just before Gorbachev arrived in Washington, as a reporter asked him if he was worried about the younger Gorbachev upstaging him. Reagan responded, “I don’t resent his popularity or anything else. Good Lord, I co-starred with Errol Flynn once.” (p.266)

One of the most interesting anecdotes concerned Reagan’s concern over a pair of cuff links he was going to give Gorbachev at the Washington summit. Reagan asked Colin Powell, then his national security advisor, “When do you think I ought to give him the cuff links?” Mann writes, “Powell tried to switch the conversation to what Gorbachev might say about Soviet SS-18 missiles, but Reagan talked about the cuff links again and again.” (p.267, both quotes) Cuff links! The leader of the free world was worried about the right time to give Gorbachev cuff links! Incredible! Does this show that Reagan was getting senile by focusing on trivial and unimportant details? Or does it show that Reagan knew that the personal connection between him and Gorbachev was just as important as the weighty issues they would be discussing?

The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan is a good examination of a pivotal time in modern history, and an intriguing portrait of one of the most fascinating presidents in modern history, a man who was both outgoing and aloof at the same time.

[Ronald J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Mann introduces this book by explaining the competing mythologies about the end of the Cold War:

“[and the] role of Ronald Reagan in the end of the Cold War. On one side is the view that through confrontation and pugnacity Reagan ‘won’ America’s four-decade-long conflict with the Soviet Union. Proponents of an opposing view hold that the fortieth president was merely lucky or utterly irrelevant. My aim in this book is to reach beyond these simple formulas, to challenge old stereotypes about Reagan, and, through a combination of new interviews and newly available documents, to look back at what actually happened.”

He proceeds to do that throughout the 300+ pages. If you’re a Cold War, or history, buff, you’ll enjoy this lookback to a tumultuous era in American and Soviet history. I was reminded just how much opposition Reagan had from the conservative right, from George Will, William F. Buckley, among many others, in his negotiations with Gorbachev to eliminate nuclear weapons. There are four major narrative parts to the book: Part I, Reagan and Nixon, the two leading anti-communists politicians of the Cold War. Part II: Reagan’s relationship with an informal advisor on the USSR, Suzanne Massie. Part III: Reagan’s famous speech at the Berlin Wall in June 1987. Part IV: The easing of Cold War tensions in Reagan’s last two years in office, along with Gorbachev’s visit to Washington, DC and Reagan’s visit to Moscow. What I enjoyed was the focus on Reagan’s mindset and his rhetoric—he spoke the truth about the Soviet Union unabashedly. Eric Honecker’s (president of East Germany) wife summed it up nicely: “Who would have ever dreamed that the counterrevolution would come at us from the Soviet Union?”

Here’s Mann conclusion:

“The Cold War was over. For years, many of America’s political leaders and most established foreign-policy experts, such as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, had spoken of the conflict between the two superpowers as an enduring stalemate. Ronald Reagan, by contrast, had grasped the possibility that the Cold War might come to an end. On this, it turned out that Reagan was right. He had not ‘won’ the Cold War in the fashion that American conservatives later claimed. Rather Gorbachev had abandoned the field. Yet Reagan had supported Gorbachev at just the right time.

“If Reagan had been merely a puppet of the American right, there would have been no embrace of Gorbachev, no drive to reduce America’s supplies of nuclear weapons and missiles…

“Reagan didn’t win the Cold War; Gorbachev abandoned it. By recognizing Gorbachev’s significance, when many others in the United States did not, Reagan helped create the climate in which the Cold War could end.”

I still like Peter Robinson’s (one of Reagan's speechwriters and author of the Berlin Wall speech) explanation for how Reagan helped end the Cold War. He was an actor who was use to changing the ending. He didn’t see the tension between the USA and USSR as insurmountable, a fact of life to be tolerated. He changed the ending. His telling Richard Allen before his presidency: “My theory of the how the Cold War ends is: We win, they lose.” Indeed. Great read.

We interviewed three of Ronald Reagan's speechwriters on The Soul of Enterprise: Tony Dolan (Evil Empire and Westminster speeches), Peter Robinson (Berlin Wall speech), and Joshua Gilder (Moscow State University speech), listen here:

https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/t...

https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/t...

https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/t...

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent and nuanced look at the Reagan years in terms of his approach to the Soviet Union. Basically a history of how Reagan went from calling the USSR an "evil empire" in 1983 to throwing his arm around Gorbachev's shoulder in the middle of Red Square in 1988.
Important reading.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is set in the second term of the Reagan presidency. The author presents an interesting window into the end of the Cold War. The usual arguments are that Reagan brought it on, vs. it was inevitable and that Reagan had little to do with it. Here the author fine tunes the thesis that Reagan brought about the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War by staging his own rebellion. The author's premise, and it is well supported and well developed, is that Reagan did so by acting on his own intuition about Gorbachev and his desire to bring about change. Reagan did this by breaking with two different establishments. One was the imbedded national security establishment (Nixon, Kissinger, Bush I, etc), which saw Gorbachev as another Communist party instrument, wanting to implement Party ideology around the world, but with a warmer face. The second break was with his anti-communist conservative political base (National Review, Dan Quail, others in Congress) to pursue what Reagan saw as an unique opportunity to help end tension and begin the process of reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. Here is Reagan using the force of ideas and rhetoric to shape the political discussion and move the world to be better place.

What was interesting in this book was the prominent role of both Nixon and Kissinger, and how Reagan and his team utilized them, but particularly Nixon, to help develop a foreign policy. Reagan and Nixon were both anti-communist Californians, and the author chronicles their separate rises and weariness of each other, especially as Nixon (and Kissinger) embraced Detente, which Reagan rejected. Again, here is Reagan holding to ideals and principles vs. policy. While, initially Reagan used Nixon to help sound out the Soviets and set a course, he later rejects Nixon's insight as he begins to see something in Gorbachev that Nixon refuses to see, a new Soviet politician. Gorbachev has come to realize that the Soviet system is collapsing and wants to ease the military / strategic tension with the US so he can concentrate on strengthening the economic / social structure of the system. Basically, he has to reduce the costs of running the Soviet empire. He is eager for change. Reagan senses this desire in him and begins to craft a strategy to help.

Presented here is quite the cast of characters involved in this process. Presented is the in-fighting between departments and political groups within the White House, and in the State Department. One interesting character is a Russian scholar, with no academic institutional backing, Suzanne Massie, who helps Reagan understand what is going on in the USSR, at the personal level, what the policy wonks can not see, due to their institutional lens. Massie is helpful, often acting as an unofficial go-between with Soviet officials. However, over time she is frozen out by White House insiders, unsure of her personal motive and if she is being used by the KGB to provide mis-information. This is the interesting bits of history, the small personal interactions, upon which major decisions often rest. Here is an engaging narrative that make history come to life.

Here is also an interesting, and conflicting picture of Reagan. James Mann, the author, does note that Reagan didn't really care about the finer points of policy. During his last year in office he was beginning to withdraw. Reagan relied on over-simplifications, humor (at times repetitive), and personal connections to gain an insight or develop a position on an issue. He was willing to let top personnel deal with the small stuff. But Mann notes that on the larger strategic picture Reagan was often engaged, knowledgeable and pro-active in developing policy. A prime example is his famed Berlin speech, where he proclaimed, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this war." The story of the political battles over this one speech and this one line is fascinating. Reagan refused to let this line die, knowing its impact to support him at home and to remind Gorbachev of ideals that can not be sacrificed. To read about how East German Communist official were nervously reacting to all of this negotiations between the US and USSR, worrying about being abandoned by Gorbachev, provides further insight into this interesting time.

Overall, a very interesting book. Especially, for students of Reagan and/or the end of the Cold War. The author does occasionally back track over the same information, but this is due to the division of the book into four parts. It can be a little off putting. However, his style of crisp, he uses a wide variety of source materials to develop his thesis, and he keeps the narrative moving right along. Here is a fresher interpretation of this period, and new insight into the power of Reagan as a leader who was willing to take chances when opportunities presented themselves. He was clearly not the "amiable dunce" put out by many in the academic establishment. This is a thesis that needs to be included in more standard histories of the time period, which too often puts Gorbachev of sole responsible for the great change that was coming. Mann shows otherwise.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story about a great man but not well written.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engrossing study showing how Reagan differed from other Cold Warriors, and therefore was able to adapt to the changes implemented by Gorbachev.

[Kevin Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall, I found The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan to be a worthwhile read. The narrative style of James Mann in writing this monograph made the book infinitely more enjoyable. I felt that this monograph humanized Ronald Reagan much more than any other piece of Reagan historiography by focusing more on Reagan’s decision-making process and the softening of his rhetoric towards the Soviet Union. This book also substantially covered perhaps the most difficult scandal of the Reagan presidency the Iran Contra Affair of the late 1980s. I truly believe that Ronald Reagan was the right man to end the Cold War as his rebellion against the Washington establishment was a true result of his moral uprightness. This book focused greatly on Berlin and the triumph of Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate. One thing that gave me pause in reading was the frequent discussion of the fact that Reagan may have had his Alzheimer’s disease as early as 1987. I felt that this book was a great introduction to Ronald Reagan’s second term. I felt that despite the liberal tinge that may have existed he was objective towards Ronald Reagan. This book to some degree felt like it was the work of a generalist scholar and read much like a popular history. Despite its flaws this monograph does have some merit to historians as it can provide the impetus for further research on the Reagan presidency.

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent recitation of events, but disappointing in its substantive analysis (or lack thereof). Mann tells us at the beginning of the book that his goal is to present an interpretation of Reagan's role in ending the Cold War that avoids the two partisan mythologies of Reagan's presidency that either overemphasize or dismiss his importance. He succeeds insofar as he portrays Reagan as being somewhere in between these two extremes, but rarely in his narrative does he offer any original analysis of Reagan's foreign policy or that of Gorbachev, or Gorbachev's attempts at reforming the Soviet system and its possible influence on the eventual breakup of the party and the union, or the political climate of Germany and Eastern Europe - all of which should have been prominently featured in an analysis of the importance of Reagan's role as one player among many.

Additionally, Mann makes many digressions that I felt were frivolous. Suzanne Massie's role as an unofficial emissary to the Soviet Union is interesting, but never seemed important enough to warrant dedicating an entire section of the book to her life and her relationship with Reagan, as Mann does here. We are told that she became close friends with Reagan and, through storytelling, was able to "humanize" the Soviet people in the president's eyes.

That may be true, but...so what? Mann justifies telling us about Massie by claiming that her rapport with Reagan was a reflection of gradual changes in the president's attitude, but apart from a few anecdotes about how Reagan mentioned the Russian "soul" in various settings, the exact nature of this change in attitude, and any influence this may have had on Reagan's diplomacy with the Soviet Union and subsequently on the end of the Cold War is never really explored.

Mann makes another long and unnecessary digression when he devotes another entire section of the book to the buildup to and delivery of Reagan's famous 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate. He spends far too much time detailing Reagan's history as an orator, the history of the very implication of American policymakers that the wall should come down, previous presidential visits to Berlin like that of John Kennedy, and the disputes among Reagan's staff regarding whether the famous "tear down this wall" clause should have remained in the speech. This entire section seems contrary to Mann's goal of getting away from triviality in approaching Reagan's presidency.

Mann claims that he wants to find a middle road between the "triumphal" and "theater" schools of interpretation regarding the speech, but merely by devoting so much of the book to one moment of political theater, Mann elevates just the sort of triviality he is trying to avoid.

No one seriously believes that the Cold War ended because Reagan uttered the words, "tear down this wall." Even the so-called triumphalists saw the speech as a reflection of a confrontational stance that was taking place in actuality; they don't believe that the speech itself actually struck a blow against the Soviet Empire. In treating the speech like a critical moment in the end of the Cold War - almost as fateful as the actual act of Berliners in dismantling the wall, Mann seems to miss the point.

The book has redeeming qualities as a factual, narrative account of the final years of the Cold War. But ultimately, in terms of substance and originality, it is a disappointment.

[Richard Lim · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan, James Mann goes to pains to argue that Ronald Reagan was essentially a liberal during the end of the Cold War and that, it is a good thing he was. As a result of Reagan's dovish policies in his second term, Mann argues, Gorbachev had the necessary space to pursue domestic reforms. Mann highlights the vociferous opposition Reagan faced from his own party and conservative thinkers during his meetings with Gorbachev and his desire to reduce (and even eliminate) nuclear weapons. Mann's analysis of the major figures of the era (Reagan, Gorbachev, Bush, Nixon, Kissinger, Powell, Schultz, Shevardnadze, Honecker, etc) is superb and fascinating. We find many of these figures moving along different streams of political thought, sometimes because of political expedience and sometimes for larger goals. At times Reagan was the hawk, proclaiming that Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall, at the dismay of disarmament officials at the State Department. Other times Reagan was the dove, proclaiming the Soviet Union as a changed system, no longer the Evil Empire he had originally denounced. The realists led by Nixon and Kissinger also undergo transformations, from supporting detente in the 70s to opposing the diplomatic efforts of Reagan. Mann convincingly explains these disagreements among American anti-communists as a result of the core philosophical differences between the realists of the Nixon era and the Reaganites. Also fascinating is Mann's analysis of the complex relationship between East and West German leadership and the implications of their actions upon the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The result is a well-written account of the complexities of the Cold War - complexities which have been airbrushed in history that seeks to portray Reagan as a right wing simpleton.
What results is a rather elusive Ronald Reagan - a man who Mann portrays as every bit as disengaged as liberals believe he was, yet deft and calculating and ultimately right in his instincts when it came to Cold War policy. Mann rightly argues that Reagan played a critical role in the end of the Cold War and that the proper question isn't necessarily whether Reagan won the war all on his own but what effect did he have.
Mann's book is supported by an extensive number of interviews he conducted with many of the major figures of the era. My only criticisms center upon his over-insistence on the mistakes of Reagan's conservative opponents. My suspicions is that many of Reagan's critics may not have had the same information that Reagan had in order to assess the Soviet Union as accurately as Reagan did. Also, Mann's book would have been more complete had he included an analysis of the effect of Reagan's first term policies (SDI, the military build-up), etc. While it is a fair argument as to whether these policies held end the Cold War, it would still be interesting to include this discussion for a broader view of Reagan's role.

[Otto Lehto · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent account of the latter days of Reagan's presidency, from the perspective of the executive branch and the president's inner circle. The book focuses especially on the events that led to the rapprochement with Soviet Union, the diplomacy with Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War. The most insightful parts are the "hidden" struggle with the so-called establishment "realists" of the Republican cold-warrior right-wing, including Nixon, Schultz and Kissinger. The book gives a surprisingly peace-loving portrayal of Reagan as a result - at least in comparison to some of the more bombing-prone, nuclear-winter-risk-willing establishment hawks of the right!

The book itself contains some major shortcomings, however. The research is partisan, selective and sloppy. Some key events and phrases are repeated more than is necessary, to cover up the shortage of research material, as if the whole book centers on a few events, characters and phrases (e.g. Berlin, Gorbachev, "tear down this wall"), whereas the true richness of the events would have merited a bit more adventurousness and original research. But I guess the book is intended more as a journalistic retelling of already-familiar events rather than a brave new foray into revisionist history, although, luckily, the book is not entirely without its novel, sharp insights.

I would recommend it as light reading (or in audiobook form, as with myself, as light listening) that can shed light - even new, some of it - on one important, world historical period in global politics, from the perspective of one of the people whom the Left loves to gut-hate and the Right to posthumously canonize. But the picture of Reagan from this book is much more complex and varied: a Hollywood Democrat turned holy icon of the Republican Party, a cold warrior turned peace-lover, a down-to-earth apocalyptic Christian, who hated the Soviet Union but the use of nuclear weapons with equal passion, who adored Nixon but clashed with him on Gorbachev; in a word, not simply a tool, but a self-propelling vehicle of what Hegel called "the cunning of reason" in history.

As Mann points out: Reagan did not "win" the Cold War, but he certainly played a role in the liberation of Eastern Europe, and even his detractors ought to give him some slack for THAT.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my definitions for a great history book is for its ability to cut through the mythology to get at the truth of the event or person being profiled. In this remarkably compact history of Pres. Reagan's role in bringing about the end of the Cold War, Mr. Mann does just that. Two schools of thought on Pres. Reagan's role in this conclude either his role was insignificant or that he was THE decisive factor. Mr. Mann's research shows that Pres. Reagan's part in this was neither, but rather he overcame the criticism of his right-wing base and within the foreign policy establishment in order to deal directly with Soviet leader Gorbachev, which gave Mr. Gorbachev time and space to implement his reforms that ultimately ended the Cold War with a whimper and not a bang. Mr. Mann splits his book into four parts. Part I deals with Reagan overcoming his right-wing base as personified in his dispute with former president Richard Nixon; Part II profiles Pres. Reagan's relationships with Suzanne Massie, a Russian scholar who encouraged Pres. Reagan's evolving views on Soviet Union and even acted as a backdoor channel communicator between Washington and Moscow; Part III deals with Pres. Reagan overcoming objections in his foreign policy team to deliver his famous "Tear down this wall" speech; and Part IV deals with the summits in Washington and Moscow at the end of Reagan's time in office that finalized the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. Through all of this Mr. Mann narrates the key moments in Pres. Reagan's diplomacy using interviews with top officials and declassified documents from the Reagan archives. Mr. Mann masterfully cuts through the two schools of thoughts on Pres. Reagan's diplomacy to show, perhaps, no one but Ronald Reagan could have done what he did, but, as Mr. Mann eloquently end his book, "Reagan didn't win the Cold War; Gorbachev abandoned it." This is a easily readable and thought-provoking book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Ronald Reagan's presidency and/or the end of the Cold War.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very strange book/Audio tape. (I listened to this as opposed to reading it.) The title is sort of misleading. I was thinking this would be more about Ronald Reagan and maybe a little bit of a history associated with and with out him in it. Well it wasn't really and I would say a 1 star because of the title. The first 4 CD's were pretty much about Nixon and he made it seem like he had a lot of power and influence on Reagan maybe early on in his presidency run. That Nixon was really calling the shots. Then the next 4 CD's was about this person Massey, who was a Russian and how Reagan took her advice on the Russian people and she was sort of a go between person between the 2 countries. The background on the history of the wall and what was happening in the 80's as well. That part was interesting, but for a 12 CD "book" it seemed excessive. He also was making a claim that Reagan really was just a right time right place through out the book and he really can't make a claim that he was a reason/cause/factor in ending the cold war. Of course at the end he sort of does. It also seems that he states Reagan wasn't a very smart person and that during his presidency he was having issues with his health and dementia. And I think there were probably 600+ references of when Reagan said "...tear down this wall." I am not kidding. I think I heard it like 10 times in a row. BTW, the author says while a famous quote now basically was meaningless. There was also references that the Republican party didn't like him, Bush didn't want him around, etc.

The "Rebellion" part in the title is I guess Reagan decided against Nixon, most of his advisors and other State people and tried to make the USSR end the war.

The book should have not had Ronald Reagan in the title.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ronald Reagan has proven to be enigmatic for historians, with most of their work being unsatisfying or, as with the case of Edmund Morris' Dutch, bizarre. James Mann fares much better here, largely because 'The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan' focuses primarily on Reagan's evolving understanding and approach to the Soviet Union and Gorbachev in particular. It's an extended monograph, really; and, mostly, well done. The book is in four parts. Part I deals with the differences between Nixon and Reagan in their views of the Soviets. Part II deals with Reagan's relationship with historian Suzanne Massie. The details of these first two parts were new to me and illuminating. Part III is a too-detailed story of Reagan's 'Tear down this wall' speech. This was mostly filler. Part IV is about Reagan's relationship with Gorbachev. Mann convincingly demonstrates the correctness of Reagan's intuition about Gorbachev and how it was possible to transform the communist system instead of just co-existing. In particular, Nixon and Kissinger come across as petty, self-interested and simply wrong by comparison. The first George Bush (and Scowcroft with him) likewise are diminished in this history. There is a little too much repetition in the writing for me to give this 5 stars and Part III almost made me grade it even lower but I really liked it overall. I have friends who refuse to give Reagan any credit for ending the cold war. This book, if only to the extent that it shows how and why Reagan departed from the far right in his approach, proves them wrong.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative, interesting and well written. Great read.

[Piker7977 · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Mann studies the end of the Cold War in a way that provides a journalist's insight while tearing down myths about the Reagan administration. To be honest, this is a refreshing approach of a topic that is saturated with either praise for or condemnation against Reagan/Gorbachev. Mann gives us a look behind the curtain with interviews from prominent participants and citations from relevant new sources. As something who tires of the polarization of presidential historiography, this book was appreciated. Mann does not get into the popular debates like the SDI trojan horse, Nancy's behind the scenes puppet strings, or the militancy of right-winged rhetoric. Instead the narrative tells how a president bucked his party's establishment by recognizing a new type of Soviet leader. This "rebellion" was attacked by those who now praise Reagan and seem to have forgotten the last two years of his presidency. The most interesting sections concern drafting the Berlin Wall speech (hardly an original comment...more of a cross departmental process to draft a speech) and Nixon's attempts at regaining the limelight in foreign policy.

I feel that both liberals and conservatives will enjoy this book. If anything it illustrates that presidents should not be put on a pedestal...especially when it comes to their historical image.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

how to avoid nuclear conflict with 3 constituents against, I just think they are wrong, Nixon on Alger Hess prosecution, 62 party with screen actors guild and communist members who did not tell truth and bombs untrustworthy too accommodating to Soviets, communism contrary to human nature, old school Nixon and Kissinger, desire to ban all nuclear weapons, Marx/Lenin spoke of the ash heap of history, Suzanne Massie, religion as Soviet’s Achilles heel due to Pope’s visits to Poland, understand daily life of people, Kennedy preserved status quo with 63 Berlin speech wall build in August 61, wall cannot withstand faith truth freedom, media Kissinger wrong about wall staying, soviet oil revenue down Chernobyl and arms competition requested SDI concept design only, Reagan deal not Bush, rush to get credit when wall down late 89 500K-750K protesting, take risks when strong, enduring and long term view, 94 Alzheimer, without guile deflecting with jokes and stories charm and not budge judgments correct, twice doze off with JPII, late 88 to 89 Gorbachev pulled troops eastern Europe abandoned cold war as Reagan kept belief in failed system of communism and Soviets.

[Sean Keogh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll admit that even though I grew up in the 80s, I was pretty sure that Rocky Balboa ended the cold war when he defeated Ivan Drago in Moscow. Turns out that is not completely true. It seems this Gorbachov character played a big role in it. The book is mostly about Reagan and Reagan's role in bringing about the end of the cold war but the conclusion I came to was that the best thing Reagan did was trust Gorbachov. This was no small thing as the United States had built up such a strong narrative (largely through Reagan's own speeches) about the evil of the Soviet Union that believing that one of their leaders might be a decent human who desired peace, was actually a big gamble. The story shows how important it is for politicians to be allowed to change their minds. Reagan did a 180 on his treatment of the Soviets and convinced both parties that he was right to do it. I think this flexibility of thinking needs to be something we highly value as we examine candidates in the coming year. Now I have to go back and fact check other important 80s documentaries such as Red Dawn and Spies Like Us.

[Josh Liller · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Rebellion of the title is both the book's rebellion against traditional thought on Reagan and Reagan's rebellion against most of his fellow Republicans in regards to how to deal with Gorbachev and the USSR.

In short, Reagan was one of the few people able to recognize Gorbachev was different and see steps toward ending the Cold War whereas most of his Republican contemporaries did not (I feel more of them needed to read Sun Tzu and understand the concept of victory without fighting). It's interesting how Reagan is held in such high esteem by the same people who at the time vehemently disagree with him.

It feels a little repetitive at times and the decision to split the book into four sections (on different aspects of the main topic) hinders the chronology a little. Generally, this book reinforces and builds upon things mentioned in a book a read a few months ago ("The Year that Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall"). Reagan is a very polarizing subject and I feel the author is reasonably unbiased.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good example of an author carefully trying to explore the nuances and complexities of the characters (primarily Reagan, of course, but Gorbachev and a few others as well to a lesser degree) and processes of an historical phenomenon without being hagiographic, iconoclastic, or positivist. It was interesting to see how Reagan had to rely on something other than just "hard data" (instinct? ability to read people? inspiration?) to make decisions that helped create the climate in which, as the author claims, Gorbachev could abandon the field in the Cold War. Sometimes the book seems a bit repetitive perhaps, but this reflects the iterative process of the diplomatic efforts required to bring about the resolution of a conflict that others (Nixon and Kissinger, for example) thought would be either a perpetual stalemate or could only end with catastrophic loss of life. I, for one, am very glad that Reagan chose to see things differently and believe in possibilities that weren't readily apparent at the time.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was born in 1979 so the 80s took place during my childhood and I was oblivious to the world around me. I learned a great deal!! This book was thorough, though repetitive, and made a well-researched argument about the importance of Gorbachev in the ending of the Cold War. I had no idea what a big part he had played, with his efforts to disarm the world's nuclear weapons. It is also clear that Reagan was the right man to deal with him. He came to believe that Gorbachev was not the typical evil communist leader, as even Reagan was disposed to assume, but was different and wanting to make changes for the USSR. These two men being in power at the same time was really just what the world needed at that pivotal time in history. Fascinating chain of events!

[Yves · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author attempts to tell an unbiased account of Reagan's role in the collapse of communism and the U.S.'s winning of the cold war, but doesn't delve deep enough. This reader came away convinced that Secretary of State George Shultz was behind most of the diplomatic tactics used by Reagan, who's main role was to act as the public face of the administration. George Bush, while pretending to take a harder line on Gorbachev once Reagan left office, actually implemented many of Shultz's plans during his term. This reader would have liked to hear more of the behind the scenes story of Shultz's influence than the contemptuous dismissal of rumors that Reagan was unfit for office in his final years, when it is clear, even in this pro-Reagan book, that he was.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, well documented, work showing what role Ronald Reagan exactly played in the unravelling of the cold war. The reader gets a lot of inside information (now declassified) showing the subtle contribution of Ronald Reagan and the complex relationship between Reagan and Gorbatchev in the events that lead eventually to the fall of the Berlin Wall and to the implosion of the Soviet Union. The author works carefully on the basis of the numerous documents he analysed and does not overplay the role of Ronald Reagan. The book is highly readable and of great interest about this fascinating events. Absolutely recommended !

[Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute must read for students of the Cold War and of Reagan. It is ironic that Reagan is now such a conservative icon given that, as Mann reminds us, he was positively vilified by the Right for reaching out Gorbachev. Also an interesting case study in how personalities can shape history. Most interesting to me was his relationship with Suzanne Massie and how she helped him understand what was really going on in the Soviet Union while she circumvented Reagan's official advisers with his acquiescence.