Review: United States: The Reagan Reversal
| Date | 01 June 1998 |
| Published date | 01 June 1998 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209805300215 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
has
been
a
change
in
how
the
role
in
coverage
and
analysis,
comfort-
of
governments
is
perceived,
from
ing
but not
enlightening.
Its
analy-
competent and
beneficent
to
capri-
sis
is
not
so
much
insight
as
boiler-
cious
if
not
dangerous. There
is
plate,
elegantly
served
but,
ulti-
scepticism,
sometimes justified,
mately,
rusty.
about
govenment's
capacity
to
understand
or
even
know
about
THE
REAGAN
REVERSAL
economic
phenomena
and
mount-
Foreign
policy
and
ing
concern
that
large
sections
of
the
end
of
the
cold
war
the
international
economy
have
Beth
A.
Fischer
escaped
any
government's
capacity
Columbia
MO:
and
London,
University
to
manage
them. Ours
is
an
age
of
Missouri
Press,
1997,
xi,
176
pp,
when
great
international
business-
US$27.50
men
bail
out
governments
-
including the
United
Nations
-
This
book,
by
a
promising
young
rather
as
their
professional
ances-
scholar at
Carleton
University,
lets
tors
once
did
in
the
heyday
of
the
fresh
air
into
the
stale
atmosphere
of
Rothschilds.
So
there
was
much
to
the
presidency
of
Ronald
Reagan.
anticipate
from
Yergin
and
Stanis-
Combining
history
and
political
sci-
law's
book.
ence
-
for once,
successfully
-
Fis-
What
strikes the
reader, however,
cher
seeks
to
explain
the change
in
is
how
familiar
it
all
is.
Perusing
the
United
States policy
that
led,
in
book, one
is
likely
to
nod
in
agree-
1984-5,
to
a
decompression
in
East-
ment
but
seldom
in
surprise.
It's
all
West
relations
and
that
made
a
use-
there,
tales
told out
of
the
Econo-
ful
contribution
to
the
end
of
the
mist,
from Margaret
Thatcher
to
cold
war.
Fischer argues
that
a
com-
Deng Xiaoping, and their
adven-
bination
of
factors,
the
KAL
007
dis-
tures in
reducing
taxes
and
liberat-
aster,
Soviet
panic
over
the
NATO
ing
entrepreneurs.
Or
rather,
it's
training
exercise
Able
Archer,
and
a
not
all
there
-
Yergin
and
Stanislaw viewing
of
the
TV
docudrama,
'The
deal
mostly
with
the
actions
of
Day
After,'
convinced
Ronald
Rea-
bureaucrats
and
politicians
and
gan
that
the
time
had
come
to
aban-
leave
almost,
but
not
quite,
unmen-
don
the
doctrine
of Mutual
Assured
tioned
such
phenomena
as
the
Destruction
that
had
governed
Eurodollar or
George
Soros
or
the
nuclear
strategy
since
the
1960s
and
capital
flows
that
wash
from
coun-
to
seek ways
of
averting
or prevent-
try
to
country
enforcing
the
will
of
ing
nuclear
Armageddon.
the marketplace.
In
fact,
this
is
a
Fischer writes
plainly
and
argues
strikingly
old-fashioned book,
both
convincingly:
as
a
result
her little
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Spring
1998
363
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