Stuff
Adobe DRM
Product Details
Simon & Schuster, November 2009
eBook, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1439170053
ISBN-13: 9781439170052
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!” 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.
Read more:
IntroductionHow 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."
"Timely and insightful. . . Ratnesar's book deftly explores the history of those famous words and highlights Ronald Reagan's clarity of vision and commitment to the American ideal."
-- Condoleezza Rice
"Romesh Ratnesar has produced a riveting account of one of the greatest speeches in modern times, which would have been enough. But along the way he has also written a brilliant and incisive history of the end of the Reagan Presidency and the Cold War. Tear Down this Wall affirms the power of words."
-- David Grann, Author of The Lost City of Z
"Fast-moving and splendidly written. . . a remarkable re-creation of the last days of the Soviet empire, with East Germany as the culmination of the Marxist dialectic, and the wall the perfect symbol for that strange alternate universe."
-- John R. Coyne, Jr., Washington Times
"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: Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation
"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
-- 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 ...
