The Human Factor

In his latest contribution to the history of the end of the Cold War, Archie Brown sets out to answer a deceptively simple question: ‘What exactly was the Cold War and why did it end in the way it did when it did?’ (p. 2). In Brown’s answer, the Cold War is defined as, above all, a political and ideological conflict whose ending hinged on Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership. Implicitly ranking the key leaders at the time, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher comes out second as the leader with the foresight to identify Gorbachev’s qualities and to act as a ‘bridge’ to US President Ronald Reagan, who comes across the least favourably of the three. The book is broadly organised into three sections: first, a series of portraits of Gorbachev, Thatcher and Reagan that traces their intellectual development; secondly, a more chronological retelling of the end of the Cold

Cold war · Economic history · Factor (programming language · Political science · Politics · Computer Science · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law