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.
This is a book about the strategy and politics of the Reagan administration--a watershed in U.S. history. It is the record of how the president established and implemented the strategy that would ultimately lead to a victory over the S.U. in the Cold War.
When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, he found America's economy, defense, and global position weakened to the point of collapse. The previous seven years of attempted détente with the Soviet Union had resulted in the worst foreign policy failures in American history. As the distinguished diplomatic historian Richard C. Thornton shows in this thorough reassessment of Reagan's presidency, written for the 40th anniversary of his election, the new president was determined to rebuild American economic and military power and to restore the Western Alliance. Reagan's "Victory Program" supported anti-Soviet resistance movements in communist countries, attacked the financial underpinnings of the Soviet economy, and boldly challenged the Soviet Union's forward positions around the world. The deployment of Pershing II missiles to Europe in 1983 restored the balance of power in Europe and, combined with the U.S. military buildup, reestablished strategic equilibrium between the United States and the Soviet Union by the end of Reagan's first term. As America faces a host of new challenges in the world today, this reexamination will be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners alike.
Spain's American empire began as the serendipitous outgrowth of the search for a shortcut to China. That search derived from two mid-fifteenth-century developments: the Ming Dynasty's decision to adopt a silver standard for its medium of exchange and the Ottoman Turks' capture of Constantinople in 1453. China's great demand for silver and the disruption of the Silk Road drove the need to find alternative access to China. King John II of Portugal sent explorers southward along the coast of Africa and thence to the Orient, but Ferdinand and Isabella sent Christopher Columbus westward, believing he would find a shorter route. A persistent if disorderly push by Spanish conquistadors led to the discovery of previously unknown civilizations, including the empires of the Aztecs and the Incas. The search for a short-cut to China became bound up with the seizure of the riches held by native populations. Although the conquistadors were vastly outnumbered, their superior technology--steel swords, armor, war horses, and firearms--concomitant with diseases that accompanied them, enabled them to subdue native American peoples and confiscate their wealth. The aftermath was fraught with complications and strife. Crown- appointed governors came into conflict with the conquistadors. Distances were great, and the governors tended to place their interests over those of the King. Cortez conquered the Aztecs despite the governor's attempts to prevent his campaign. Bureaucratic interference bedeviled Francisco Pizzaro's campaign against the Incas, which, nonetheless, contributed more to the wealth of his country than any other conquistador's exploits. Ultimately, the vast wealth of the Americas would fuel Spain and its Empire for nearly two centuries.
History of Reagan's victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and his defeat at the hands of his domestic political opponents, who sought accommodation with Moscow over victory. The book traces the climax of a two-decade-long struggle within the American establishment over strategy, known as the Iran-Contra scandal. As detailed in this volume, the scandal masked both the president's political defeat and the fundamental change that occurred in American national security strategy.
Volume III of the Reagan Revolution series recounts the president's successful defeat of the Soviet drive for global hegemony--for strategic weaons superiority, political domination of the Eurasian landmass, and decisive leverage over world oil. In volumes I and II of this study I analyzed the president's decisions to jettison the failed strategy of detente and seek victory in the Cold War. In broadening the nation's economic base to sustain a more powerful military capability, he confronted the Soviet military challenge. Simultaneously, he worked to rebuild the Western Alliance, which had disintegrated during the detente years. In this volume I show how Reagan foiled the Soviet drive for strategic weapons superiority with a complex, high technology weapons buildup and a surprise shift to strategic defense, inaugurating a fundmental change in the national security equation. He neutralized the Soviet attempt to dominate the Eurasian landmass with the SS-20 missile by deploying the Pershing II/cruise missile package to Western Europe. And he blocked the Soviet drive to shift Iran into its orbit thereby preserving the secure flow of oil to the west and opening the door to an improvement of reltions with Iran. Recognizing that the Soviet Union was overextended, fueling revolutionary movements on four continents and deeply mired in Afghanistan, the president raised the costs of competition for the Soviet economy already laboring under the heavy burden large-scale military expenditures. He worked for reduced energy prices, reducing Soviet hard-currency earnings, while at the same time blocking the transfer of high technology upon which the Soviet Union depended to remain competitive with the United States. By the middle of 1984 the Soviet leadership concluded that its strategy had failed and would have to be changed.
It is the purpose of this work to provide an integrated analytical framework that will serve as a guide to further study of the vast and complex subject of Chinese Communist politics. The outpouring of materials from U.S., Soviet, Chinese Communist, and Chinese Nationalist sources in recent years has greatly enriched our fund of knowledge about China. For the historian of Chinese politics the new data have provided answers to hitherto unresolved problems and raised questions about seemingly settled issues. Although it is now possible to piece together the main outlines of the struggle for power in China, obviously no single volume can presume to encompass all aspects of the story.
Does terrorism actually work? And if so, then how? One of the world's leading experts on terrorism addresses these vital questions--ones which have, until now, remained remarkably under-scrutinized.
An iconic friendship, an uneasy alliance—a revisionist account of the couple who ended the Cold War. For decades historians have perpetuated the myth of a "Churchillian" relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, citing their longtime alliance as an example of the "special" bond between the United States and Britain. But, as Richard Aldous argues in this penetrating dual biography, Reagan and Thatcher clashed repeatedly—over the Falklands war, Grenada, and the SDI and nuclear weapons—while carefully cultivating a harmonious image for the public and the press. With the stakes enormously high, these political titans struggled to work together to confront the greatest threat of their time: the USSR. Brilliantly reconstructing some of their most dramatic encounters, Aldous draws on recently declassified documents and extensive oral history to dismantle the popular conception of Reagan-Thatcher diplomacy. His startling conclusion—that the weakest link in the Atlantic Alliance of the 1980s was the association between the two principal actors—will mark an important contribution to our understanding of the twentieth century.
With a special emphasis on the exchange of land between medieval servile tenants--especially from the 13th century onward--this scholarly examination of the peasant land market of the Middle Ages explores the identification of peasant families with particular lands to which they had a hereditary right. Using this theme to explore village life and showing how peasants were affected by the changes over time and place, this study employs primary source material from the Winchester estates. Analyzing thousands of land exchanges and interactions from more than 50 different manors on Winchester, this volume reveals unparalleled opportunities for comparing regional and local differences of experience.
This is book two of a two volume set. The Nottingham Date Book is a book of the history of Nottingham from 850 to 1884. In particular, after about 1750, it is full of references to every-day happenings in the town and its people. Not just important people, but normal people too. Its fascination for me is not only because I was born in Nottingham and interested in its history, but also as a family historian, as it contains so many references to people and every-day events. It is a particularly rare book, and even more so in its complete edition up to 1884.
This is a book about the strategy and politics of the Reagan administration--a watershed in U.S. history. It is the record of how the president established and implemented the strategy that would ultimately lead to a victory over the S.U. in the Cold War.
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