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A masterful account of how Ronald Reagan and his national security team confronted the Soviets, reduced the nuclear threat, won the Cold War, and supported the spread of freedom around the world."Remarkable ... a great read." - Robert Gates * "Mesmerizing ... hard to put down." - Paul Kennedy * "Clearly written, thoroughly researched, full of fresh information ... will shape all future studies of the role the United States played in ending the Cold War." - John Lewis Gaddis * "A major contribution to our understanding of the Reagan presidency and the twilight of the Cold War era." - David Kennedy With decades of hindsight, the peaceful end of the Cold War seems a foregone conclusion. But in the early 1980s, most experts believed the Soviet Union was strong, stable, and would last into the next century.