The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan in the White House and the World

Often reviled as a warmonger, Ronald Reagan succeeded through resolve and canny policy in peacefully ending the Cold War, according to this sweeping study of his foreign policy. Inboden (The Last Card), a University of Texas professor of public affairs and former State Department official, credits Reagan with a visionary strategy to promote the dissolution of the Soviet Union with a massive military buildup, economic sanctions, and support for insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and other Soviet client states, all aimed at imposing crippling costs on the rickety Russian economy. Meanwhile, Reagan’s genuine revulsion at the possibility of nuclear war—the postapocalyptic television movie The Day After terrified him, Inboden reports—prompted the president to pursue intense diplomacy with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, leading to groundbreaking nuclear arms reduction agreements. Throughout, Inboden offers blow-by-blow accounts of foreign-policy crises and melodramatic infighting among Reagan administration officials while shaping a lucid, engrossing narrative from the chaos. Though he questions morally dubious Reagan initiatives like the arms-for-hostages deals with Iran and support for Iraq’s authoritarian ruler Saddam Hussein, the criticism feels somewhat anodyne: “Such were the hard choices of geopolitics at the time.” Still, this is a stimulating case for the 40th president as a serious, far-sighted statesman. (Nov.)