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Title: Tear Down This Wall

Subtitle: A City, a President, and the Speech that Ended the Cold War

Author: Romesh Ratnesar

Narrator: Wes Bleed

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-22-09

Publisher: Oasis Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan addressed a crowd of 20,000 people in West Berlin in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. The words he delivered that afternoon would become among the most famous in presidential history: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate," Reagan said. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!"

In this riveting and fast-paced audiobook, Romesh Ratnesar provides an account of how Reagan arrived at his defining moment and what followed from it. The audio is based on interviews with numerous former Reagan administration officials and American and German eyewitnesses to the speech, as well as recently declassified State Department documents and East German records of the president's trip.

Ratnesar provides new details about the origins of Reagan's speech and the debate within the administration about how to issue the fateful challenge to Gorbachev. Tear Down This Wall re-creates the charged atmosphere surrounding Reagan's visit to Berlin and explores the speech's role in bringing about the fall of the Berlin Wall less than two years later. At the heart of the story is the relationship between two giants of the late 20th century: Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Departing from the view that Reagan "won" the Cold War, Ratnesar demonstrates that both Reagan and Gorbachev played indispensable roles in bringing about the end of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. It was the trust that Reagan and Gorbachev built in each other that allowed them finally to overcome the suspicions that had held their predecessors back. Calling on Gorbachev to tear down the Wall, in Reagan's mind, might actually encourage him to do it.

Reagan's speech in Berlin was more than a good sound bite. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we can now see the speech as the event that marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

Members Reviews:

Interesting unique insights through thinly veiled contempt for Reagan

After reading dozens of books of presidential history surrounding Reagan, I found it exciting to read several tidbits of history that I had not read in some way previously. From that perspective, the book was a worthwhile read. However, as others have commented about the strange twist at the end comparing Reagan and Obama in bizarre fashion, you really dont have to wait until the end to gather Ratnesar's distaste for Reagan and his cabinet and advisers. In a way, it was good to see that very early on in the book, hence I could compartmentalize his opinions of people (which he states in a very unjournalistic manner, in my opinion) and his presentation of objective facts.

I'd buy the book again. Its a good account of European history leading the reader through the 60's and up to The Speech.