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The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan
- A History of the End of the Cold War
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
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Publisher's summary
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 and Moscow; internal White House intrigues; and battles with leading figures such as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who repeatedly questioned Reagan's unfolding diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev. He details the background and fierce debate over Reagan's famous Berlin Wall speech and 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 and his strategy. This book finally answers the troubling questions about Reagan's actual role in the crumbling of Soviet power. Mann concludes that by recognizing the significance of Gorbachev, Reagan helped bring the Cold War to a close.
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- Unabridged
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Margaret MacMillan brings her extraordinary gifts to two of the most important countries today, the United States and China, and one of the most significant moments in modern history: Richard Nixon's week in China in February 1972, which opened relations between America and China (closed since the communists came to power in 1949).
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Incisive
- By Roy on 08-23-10
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The Netanyahu Years
- Translated by Ora Cummings
- By: Ben Caspit
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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A portrait of the current Israeli prime minister, one of Israel's more noticeable leaders in recent decades. Benjamin Netanyahu is currently serving his fourth term in office as prime minister of Israel, the longest serving prime minister in the country's history. Now Israeli journalist Ben Caspit puts Netanyahu's life under a magnifying glass, focusing on his last two terms in office.
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weak
- By kay on 06-11-18
By: Ben Caspit
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Ike's Gamble
- America's Rise to Dominance in the Middle East
- By: Michael Doran
- Narrated by: Casey Jones
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In 1956 President Nasser of Egypt moved to take possession of the Suez Canal, thereby bringing the Middle East to the brink of war. The British and the French, who operated the canal, joined with Israel in a plan to retake it by force. Despite the special relationship between England and America, Dwight Eisenhower intervened to stop the invasion.
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Tightly Argued
- By Jean on 01-10-17
By: Michael Doran
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Asia's Reckoning
- China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century
- By: Richard Mcgregor
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard McGregor's Asia's Reckoning is a compelling account of the widening geopolitical cracks in a region that has flourished under an American security umbrella for more than half a century. The toxic rivalry between China and Japan, two Asian giants consumed with endless history wars and ruled by entrenched political dynasties, is threatening to upend the peace underwritten by Pax Americana since World War II.
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Good info to learn, but...
- By Neal on 02-24-18
By: Richard Mcgregor
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Reagan's Secret War
- The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster
- By: Martin Anderson, Annelise Anderson
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Martin and Annelise Anderson drew upon their access to more than eight million classified documents housed within the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. What emerges from this treasure trove of material is evidence that Reagan intended from his first days in office to bring down the Soviet Union, that he considered eliminating nuclear weapons his paramount objective, and that he was the principal architect of the policies that brought the Soviets to the nuclear-arms negotiating table.
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IMPORTANT HISTORICAL INFORMATION
- By Byron on 06-19-12
By: Martin Anderson, and others
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Kissinger: Volume I
- 1923-1968: The Idealist
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 34 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super-K" - the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama - he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon" for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial biography, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.
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Riveting
- By Jean on 11-10-15
By: Niall Ferguson
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Known and Unknown
- A Memoir
- By: Donald Rumsfeld
- Narrated by: Donald Rumsfeld
- Length: 30 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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A powerful memoir from the late former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. With the same directness that defined his career in public service, Rumsfeld's memoir is filled with previously undisclosed details and insights about the Bush administration, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also features Rumsfeld's unique and often surprising observations on eight decades of history. Both a fascinating narrative and an unprecedented glimpse into history, Known and Unknown captures the legacy of one of the most influential men in public service.
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Inside view of five decades in politics
- By Brooks on 02-19-11
By: Donald Rumsfeld
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Days of Fire
- Bush and Cheney in the White House
- By: Peter Baker
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 29 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Theirs was the most captivating American political partnership since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger: a bold and untested president and his seasoned, relentless vice president. Confronted by one crisis after another, they struggled to protect the country, remake the world, and define their own relationship along the way. In Days of Fire, Peter Baker chronicles the history of the most consequential presidency in modern times through the prism of its two most compelling characters, capturing the elusive and shifting alliance of George Walker Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney as no historian has done before.
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A balanced account of the W and Cheney White House
- By Scott on 11-15-13
By: Peter Baker
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Collapse
- The Fall of the Soviet Union
- By: Vladislav M. Zubok
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 23 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.
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Hopefully Not Prescient
- By Joshua on 01-29-22
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Roosevelt's Second Act
- The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War
- By: Richard Moe
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 31, 1939, nearing the end of his second and presumably final term in office, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was working in the Oval Office and contemplating construction of his presidential library and planning retirement. The next day German tanks had crossed the Polish border; Britain and France had declared war. Overnight the world had changed, and FDR found himself being forced to consider a dramatically different set of circumstances.
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Puts listener in the moment.
- By Jake on 05-16-14
By: Richard Moe
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The Wise Men
- Six Friends and the World They Made
- By: Evan Thomas, Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Reese
- Length: 33 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Six close friends shaped the role their country would play in the dangerous years following World War II. They were the original best and brightest, whose towering intellects, outsize personalities, and dramatic actions would bring order to the postwar chaos, and whose strong response to Soviet expansionism would leave a legacy that dominates American policy to this day. In April 1945, they converged to advise an untutored new president, Harry Truman.
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Dull with poor narration
- By KD6161 on 03-31-17
By: Evan Thomas, and others
What listeners say about The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- W. Max Hollmann
- 02-26-13
Throw away the first part; listen to the second
One becomes inured to the vagaries of Washington politics. Many, outside the Beltway, prefer not to have their noses rubbed in it. Sort of not wanting to see how sausages are made. The first half of this book is boring when it rubs one's nose in the minutia of political maneuvering and jockying for position and one-up-manship. Almost every sentence contains the words: "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall." In the first part you are left with the impression that the only thing that came out of the President's tenure was the Berlin apeach. It appears there were various (numersous?) agencies, departments persons, ad nauseum.that either did not want those words in Reagan's spreech...or did...or maybe some variation; and the author provides not only the official reasons, for or against, but intuited reasons what or what not politicans thought or thought they thought, and so on. It sort of reminds me of a Mozart farce. The author feels the necessity of repeating the five words over and over while comparing the final speach's wording with every conceivable, discarded variation. It portrays, in dreary detail, why Washington is disfunctional.
The second part is worth the listen. (Note the uniform 3 star rating. I rate the first part zero (for boredom) and the second part 4 stars or maybe 4 1/2 stars.) The second part at least gives the President's tenure some perspective. And provides a thumb-nail sketch of what the idea behind those words meant and what they led to. One almost forgets the first part but is on the look-out for repititions sneaking in. On the negative side, I don't think the fact that the Reagans imported a bed from Spain to sleep in, or that Reagan fell off to sleep both times when visiting the Pope add any insight to the demise of the Soviet political and economic system.
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- mark
- 12-21-14
forget simplistic narratives of the left or right
we see here how Reagan played the vital role of enabler to Gorbachev. neither one without the other could not have ended the cold war. a great story
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- George
- 05-01-15
Too much repetition
His story about Ronald Reagan was pretty much accurate. He could have, however, achieved it with a shorter book. I liked his depiction of Berlin, especially during the Kennedy years as I observed it firsthand living in Berlin from April 1962 until October 1964.
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