The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War James Mann Several competing mythologies have developed about Reagan's role in the end of the cold War. Was he a brilliant strategist whose confrontation and pugnacity "won" America's four-decade conflict with the Soviet Union? Or was the fortieth president merely lucky - or utterly irrelevant? In fact, the true story is a complex blend of both these conclusions, with a strong mixture of secret, personalized diplomacy at home and abroad that has largely been ignored by historians until now. Enter James Mann, whose earliest bestselling book about George W. Bush's war cabinet, Rise of the Vulcans, was praised as "lucid, shrewd and, after so many high-decibel screeds from both the right and left, blessedly level;-headed… necessary reading for anyone interested in understanding the back story of how and why America came to deal with the rest of the world." In The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan, Mann directs his keen analysis to Ronald Reagan's role in ending the Cold War. Drawing on new interviews and previously unavailable documents, Mann offers a fresh and compelling narrative – a new history assessing what Reagan did, and did not do, to help bring America's 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 and Moscow; Internal White House intrigues; and pitched private and public battles with leading eminences 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 typecasting of Reagan, offering a complete, satisfying, and, for many, utterly surprising new interpretations of these history-changing events. James Mann is the author of the New York Times bestseller Rise of the Vulcansand The China Fantasy, among others. Author-in-residence at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, he is an award-winning former Washington reporter, columnist, and foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.