A very interesting and informative book. Not an easy, light book to read. It goes into great detail, contains lots and lots of facts and data, requiring me to go back and re-read many paragraphs & sections.

Reagan was a brilliant leader and not one to give in to his bright advisors, whom could often question him & disagree with him.

He researched issues and gave great thought to decisions, before he executed his orders.

I learned so much from reading this book!

Paul Kengor's book is an interesting look at the Reagan legacy with regards to foreign policy. While a Reagan booster and fan of the president I think this book goes to far in asserting what Reagan knew about the downfall of the Soviet Union. Underscored in the Kengor's points is one key difference the Reagan often does not get enough credit for which is that Reagan was the first president who believed the Soviet Union could be defeated. To say however that he came in with a plan to destroy the evil empire is a little far fetched. Overall though Kengor's points are well illustrated and he ties together a thematic view of Ronald Reagan upon the lens of foreign policy. I think the reviewer who puts this between David McCullough and Sean Hannity has it in the exact right place for where it falls in the historical spectrum. While they are more detailed books on Reagan (see Richard Reeves) the are also ones that are unabashed praise which is a bad thing regardless of your political persuasion (see D'souza). For those who want to get a quick overview of Reagan's efforts in foreign policy this is a great place to start.

This is the Cold War through Reagan's eyes. Like many of the early Kennedy books (A Thousand Days and To Move a Nation) it is not a balanced portrait nor is it a history of the Cold War. But it is an important source of insight into Reagan's thinking and leadership ability. The book is especially good at capturing the power of Reagan as a communicator of ideas and values and at chronicling Moscow's view of Reagan the man. It was a remarkable presidency, one that in retrospect looks better every year. The critics of his administration have their points, but still have to face the fact that 1980-1988 saw a revival of the American spirit, an economic turnaround, and the liberation of Eastern Europe soon after--all attributable to Reagan's vision and policies. The Last Best Hope is a collection of Reagan's speeches from 1964 to his farewell letter to the nation ion 1994. An actor to be sure but also a man with a message and the ability to deliver it. Truly the Great Communicator.

Superb biography focusing on Ronald Reagan's life long battle against Communism and the Soviet Union, form his days as an actor to president of the United States. Kengor superbly chronicles Reagan's life long battle against Communism, highlighting some forgotten aspects of his battle, such as his testimony to the HUAC committee in 1948, where he didn't name names and even defended the right of the Communist party to exist in the United States. A superb read from beginning to end.

Loved this story as it focused on just one aspect of Ronald Regan on his presidency. The book is about his personal war against communism and the Soviet Union. Truly an inspiring read! Even if you were not a fan of Regan, you can appreciate his dedication to what he felt was an egregious human rights violation.

The most shocking thing - to me - was the information about Ted Kennedy and his attempts to contact Yuri Andropov to help sway the American Presidential Election in 1984. Incredible. I'd never heard that before but Paul Kengor presented plenty of evidence from the Kremlin, no less.

If you're at all interested in the history of the Berlin Wall and its historic fall - this is a book for you!

Excellent, easy read which describes how Reagan proactively went after the Soviet Communists early in his administration. The book tells a lot of what went on behind the scenes during the 80s, most of which no one ever realized or discussed since it was secret. Important book.

I love Paul Kengor and his other writings on Reagan, but this may be his best. Sometimes he can get very bogged down in source material, but this is a focused read on how Reagan was always focused on tearing down communism. From his early days in Hollywood. His call to tear down the wall wasn't a spur of the moment capitalization on political realities, he called for it in the 1960's in a debate with RFK. It really is amazing to consider the shift from containment to his call to end the Soviet Union. Kengor covers most of the usual Reagan ground, but 3 interesting connections I came away with.

1. He ties his desire to save the world from communism to his start as a life guard during his teenage summers. His life saving started then and winning the Cold war was the natural extension of that.

2. He was so popular leading into the 1984 election that Ted Kennedy was exploring a propaganda tour with Andropov to share the Soviet side of the war. This revelation was fascinating to me and includes good source material.

3. Heavy focus on his efforts in Poland and Afghanistan to undermine the Soviets. Major Reagan biographies don't even mention Lech Walesa or the mujahedeen, but both were critical to the fall of the next half century. For maybe $50M the US was able to use Poland as the wedge that broke East Europe free. Afghanistan was critical to the fall, but some of the ungrateful mujahadeen would eventually turn their guns on the US for not more openly taking their side. Very interesting read and well written.

Anyone that thinks the Soviet Union fell of it's own accord should read this. This book details the steps that were directed by Ronald Reagan to demolish communism in the Soviet Union and around the world. Our current president is the first one that should read this book. Will we ever have another president that understands what made America great?

Great Read from my Son!

Great indepth biography of Ronald Reagan

A few years back, I was having an argument with a (rather liberal) friend of mine about the collapse of European communism. We are both from Europe, but we grew up on different sides of the East-West divide. His was what I came to understand the conventional view of people on the left: the communism collapsed due to its internal contradictions, because it was not the "real" communism, and a string of similar sorts of nonsense. As with many other issues that we argued about, I could not have disagreed more. Indeed, communism had enough of the internal problems that its eventual demise was inevitable, however left to its own devices, the eventual collapse would surely taken many more years, or even decades if not longer to unravel, with incalculable cost in human misery that would have engendered. Those of us who have had the luck to avoid that misery are grateful for all the external pressures exercised on that political system that hastened its demise, in particular the pressure that United States has exercised during all those decades of the Cold War, culminating with the final strong push by president Ronald Reagan and his administration. This book is a valuable record of what motivated Reagan to see the communism for what it really was - an evil system bent on repressing its own citizens. The book documents Reagan's anti-communist stand from his earliest political days, all the way through his years in the office. It gives an invaluable event-by-event chronology of all the systematic and relentless effort that Reagan put into dismantling the communist influence everywhere in the world that culminated in the final collapse of the Soviet Union and its many Eastern European satellite-states.

If there is one criticism that I would have against this book, it would be that it sometimes portrays Reagan too one-dimensionally. The reader gets the impression that anti-communism was the only motivator behind this great American president. Nevertheless, this is a great andextremely well researched book and it is extremely valuable to anyone with interest in either Ronald Reagan or the Cold War.

Very different from the movie that was based on the book. But in a good and way more complex way.