Stuff
Product Details
Simon & Schuster, November 2009
Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1416556907
ISBN-13: 9781416556909
Description
On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan addressed a crowd of 20,000 people in West Berlin in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. The words he delivered that afternoon would become among the most famous in presidential history. "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate," Reagan said. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!"
In this riveting and fast-paced book, Romesh Ratnesar provides an account of how Reagan arrived at his defining moment and what followed from it. The book is based on interviews with numerous former Reagan administration officials and American and German eyewitnesses to the speech, as well as recently declassified State Department documents and East German records of the president's trip. Ratnesar provides new details about the origins of Reagan's speech and the debate within the administration about how to issue the fateful challenge to Gorbachev. Tear Down This Wall re-creates the charged atmosphere surrounding Reagan's visit to Berlin and explores the speech's role in bringing about the fall of the Berlin Wall two years later.
At the heart of the story is the relationship between two giants of the late twentieth century: Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Departing from the view that Reagan "won" the Cold War, Ratnesar demonstrates that both Reagan and Gorbachev played indispensable roles in bringing about the end of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. It was the trust that Reagan and Gorbachev built in each other that allowed them finally to overcome the suspicions that had held their predecessors back. Calling on Gorbachev to tear down the Wall, in Reagan's mind, might actually encourage him to do it. Reagan's speech in Berlin was more than a good sound bite. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we can now see the speech as the event that marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
Elegant and dramatic, Tear Down This Wall is the definitive account of one of the most memorable speeches in recent history and a reminder of the power of a president's words to change the world.
How did you come to write this book?
I wanted to write about an event that I had lived through and which shaped my generation. I also have long had an interest in the Cold War and the factors and personalities involved with bringing it to an end. And I am fascinated by Presidential speeches and have admired a number of books that have focused on individual speeches, such as Garry Wills' "Lincoln at Gettysburg," Douglas Brinkley's "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc" and Thurston Clarke's "Ask Not." All of those things came together with "Tear Down this Wall."
"The four words that Ronald Reagan hurled at Mikhail Gorbachev were an exhortation, even a demand, but they were also part of a dialogue, a partnership, and a friendship that changed the world. It is high time for a focused study of how that speech came to be written and why it was so consequential. Romesh Ratnesar has told the story with narrative verve, brilliant political and personal insight, and a combination of concision and pithiness worthy of the Great Communicator himself."
-- STROBE TALBOTT, author of The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation
"Romesh Ratnesar has written a smart and deeply illuminating history of Ronald Reagan at the zenith of the Cold War. This is a fine, important, and admirable study."
-- DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
"Among the fascinating challenges facing historians are figuring out how Ronald Reagan's mind worked and assessing the factors that led to the end of the Cold War. Romesh Ratnesar weaves these together brilliantly. This is an exciting narrative that explains a critical moment in history and brings to life the amazing players in a great drama."
-- WALTER ISAACSON, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe
"Romesh Ratnesar's absorbing, fine-tuned account offers a valuable behind-the-scenes view of the Reagan White House at work -- and, on the other side of the Berlin Wall, of the world of the democratic dissidents whom Reagan uplifted. It is an important addition to the growing library on the Reagan era."
-- SEAN WILENTZ, Princeton University, author of The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008
"With the perspective of time, access to newly available papers, and a Reaganesque flair for storytelling with a point, Romesh Ratnesar gives us the ultimate insider's account of the history that unfolded when those around him, sometimes reluctantly, let Reagan be Reagan. No future discussion of the Cold War and how it ended will be complete without reference to this riveting book."
-- RICHARD NORTON SMITH, author of The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880-1955
Arizona Daily Star, January 5, 2010
...speech in question was the one with one of the most famous sentences in modern history: 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.' That speech is the subject of a recent book by Romesh Ratnesar called 'Tear Down This Wall.' Yes, it's a 200-plus ...
Brookings Institution, November 9, 2009
...Ronald Reagan’s starring role in the demise of the Evil Empire. For example, a new book by Romesh Ratnesar (Tear Down This Wall: A City, a President, and the Speech that Ended the Cold War) argues that the four-word dare that Reagan hurled ...
KansasCity.com, November 1, 2009
...Mission, noon Nov. 5 ($35), YWCA, 1017 N. Sixth, Kansas City, Kan. www.kclibrary.org (816-701-3407 and 913-371-1105) ROMESH RATNESAR: Author of new book, Tear Down This Wall: A City, a President, and the Speech That Ended the Cold War, will ...
Boston Globe, November 1, 2009
...Doubleday) Tear Down This Wall: A City, a President and the Speech that Ended the Cold War, by Romesh Ratnesar (Simon & Schuster) Pick of the week Peter Marsh of Briggs Carriage Bookstore in Brandon, Vt., recommends Invisible by Paul ...
Washington Post, November 1, 2009
...ultimately freed by the United States. That conception delights neoconservatives eager to extract parables to illuminate the present. Romesh Ratnesar has decided to play to that crowd -- those Americans who see this 20th anniversary as an ...
Washington Post, October 31, 2009
...ultimately freed by the United States. That conception delights neoconservatives eager to extract parables to illuminate the present. Romesh Ratnesar has decided to play to that crowd -- those Americans who see this 20th anniversary as an ...
New York Review of Books, October 15, 2009
...pitch for their version of détente, known as Ostpolitik ; Americans on the right make it for Ronald Reagan. (Romesh Ratnesar subtitles his dispensable book on Reagan's 1987 'tear down this wall' speech in Berlin 'A City, a President, and ...
