Recounts the events of Reagan's historic, three-day 1988 Moscow Summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, examining the importance of Reagan's speech at Moscow State University that offered a new vision of the future to the Soviet people.

"They called it the Reagan revolution," Ronald Reagan noted in his Farewell Address. "Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense." Nearly two decades after that 1989 speech, debate continues to rage over just how revolutionary those Reagan years were. The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction identifies and tackles some of the controversies and historical...

"Former U.S. ambassador to the USSR Jack F. Matlock refutes the idea that the United States forced the collapse of the Soviet Union--with wide-ranging implications for U.S. foreign policy. Matlock argues that Gorbachev, not Reagan, undermined Communist Party rule in the Soviet Union, and that the Cold War ended in a negotiated settlement that benefited both sides. He posits that the end of the Cold War diminished American power; with the removal of...

"'Going from total anonymity to being president of the United States in less than twelve months is unprecedented,' recalled Carter's pollster Pat Caddell. 'If it weren't for the country looking for something in 1976, Carter could never have gotten elected. He would never have been allowed out of the box. No one would have paid attention to him.' Caddell was not being flattering, but it is true that Jimmy Carter's ascent owed much to timing. Disenchantment...