Shelf Life: The Peacemaker

“WHY are you doing this?” a political consultant asked Ronald Reagan in a quiet moment of the 1980 campaign. “Why do you want to be president?” Reagan’s answer was simple, surprising, and unhesitating: “To end the Cold War. There has to be a way, and it’s time.”

In The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (Regan, 432 pp., $29.95), Paul Kengor makes clear just how central the defeat of the Soviet Union was to Reagan’s personal project. Kengor, the author of biographies of Reagan and George W. Bush that focused on the two men’s religious attitudes and practices, here trains his eye on the Main Event in Reagan’s public life. His detailed account of the eight years in which Reagan managed the end of the Cold War will solidify the new consensus of historians: Reagan was a highly able man, who played a crucial role in the relatively peaceful eclipsing of the most dangerous regime in world history.

About the Author

Michael Potemra

Michael Potemra was a literary editor for National Review.

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“WHY are you doing this?” a political consultant asked Ronald Reagan in a quiet moment of the 1980 campaign. “Why do you want to be president?” Reagan’s answer was simple, surprising, and unhesitating: “To end the Cold War. There has to be a way, and it’s time.”

In The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (Regan, 432 pp., $29.95), Paul Kengor makes clear just how central the defeat of the Soviet Union was to Reagan’s personal project. Kengor, the author of biographies of Reagan and George W. Bush that focused on the two men’s religious attitudes and practices, here trains his eye on the Main Event in Reagan’s public life. His detailed account of the eight years in which Reagan managed the end of the Cold War will solidify the new consensus of historians: Reagan was a highly able man, who played a crucial role in the relatively peaceful eclipsing of the most dangerous regime in world history.