The point of departure for distinguished historian Richard C. Thornton’s insightful new assessment of the Reagan administration is Reagan’s overwhelming re-election in 1984. His first-term policies had placed the United States in the ascendancy over the Soviet Union, and he sought to capitalize on that success by bringing the Cold War to an end on favorable terms. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, proved increasingly unable to bear the costs of supporting its empire and client state and adopted a strategy of détente. Its new leader Mikhail Gorbachev personified the new stance, and his rise to power in 1985 galvanized the U.S. administration’s détente faction in renewed opposition to Reagan’s strategy and advocacy of accommodation with Moscow.
