Reagan's War Stories

While many aspects of Ronald Reagan’s legacy continue to be hotly debated in the more than thirty years since he left the White House as President of the United States, one facet that is widely agreed upon is that the vast majority of his time and attention during his tenure was focused on strengthening U.S. forces vis-à-vis their paramount Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union. In Reagan’s War Stories: A Cold War Presidency, Benjamin Griffin deftly analyzes the impact of popular culture on the decisions Reagan made that directly impacted upon the course of the Cold War. Griffin uses a plethora of primary and secondary sources to craft a convincing argument that Reagan, who has been considered by some contemporaries and historians alike as an “intellectual lightweight,” was, in actuality, laser focused on improving the U.S. position against the Soviet Union, effectively using popular culture, especially as conveyed through novels in the current zeitgeist, to help his platform resonate with the general public.[1]