Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 448 pages
- Published by: Regnery Publishing, Inc. November 25, 2006
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 1596980168
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-1596980167
-
Book Dimensions:
9 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
- Weighs: 1.2 pounds
Product Description
The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister is a sweeping, dramatic account of how three great figures changed the course of history, as told by John O'Sullivan, former editor of National Review and the Times of London, who knew all three and has conducted exclusive interviews that shed extraordinary new light on these giants of the twentieth century.
From the Inside Flap
They Changed the Course of History
They were three "middle managers" no one imagined could reach the top.
Ronald Reagan was too old to be president and too conservative anyway. Margaret Thatcher was not only too conservative she was a woman, and not on anyone's short list to lead Britain's Conservative Party. And the idea of a Polish pope that was truly absurd, especially when the cardinal in question was a strong anti-Communist and defender of orthodoxy when many in the Church and throughout the world believed the future belonged to détente with the Soviets and social liberalism in the West.
Not only did
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Karol Wojtyla (the future John Paul II) rise to the top, but all three of them also survived assassination attempts, collaborated in the miraculous peaceful liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet Communism, and reinvigorated their respective countries and the West. They were beacons of optimism cutting through the malaise and despair that afflicted 1970s America, strike-ridden and economically nearly dead post-imperial Britain, and a Catholic Church rocked by social and sexual revolutions.
In The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, veteran journalist and former Thatcher speechwriter John O'Sullivan reveals:
● How Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul developed as strong and individual leaders, perfectly suited to take power when liberalism failed How John Paul's papal visit to Poland in June 1979 led to the birth of the Solidarity labor union
● How the pope's moral undermining of Communism worried the Soviet Politburo more than any military threat
● Why Thatcher's handling of the Falklands crisis was a turning point in the Cold War
● How Reagan arranged for the pope to receive U.S. intelligence on developments in the Soviet bloc
● Reagan's reluctant support for the nuclear "balance of terror" and how he gratefully adopted the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) as an effective alternative
● The Soviets' attempts to lure the pope into an anti-SDI campaign and his refusal
● How Reagan's refusal to compromise with Gorbachev in Reykjavik precipitated the unraveling of Soviet power
● How Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II restored optimism and hope to their people
Today, as we face a new and perhaps even deadlier enemy than Soviet Communism, we need to revisit the powerful lessons taught by these three great leaders who revived the faith, prosperity, and freedom of the West.
John O'Sullivan covered the Reagan presidency as a Washington columnist, was a special adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and has written regularly on Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church's influence on international relations. A veteran journalist in Britain and the United States, he was the editor in chief of National Review, The National Interest, Policy Review, and United Press International, editorial page editor of the New York Post, op-ed and editorial page editor for the London Times, and an editor with the London Daily Telegraph. He is currently editor at large for National Review, a weekly columnist for the
Chicago Sun-Times, and a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute. A Commander of the British Empire and founder of the New Atlantic Initiative, he divides his time between his apartment in Washington, D.C., his home in Decatur, Alabama, and frequent trips to Britain, Europe, and Latin America.
Reader Reviews
They were unlikely world-changers. As the 1970s dawned, writes John O'Sullivan, they were leaders with uneven prospects, each weighed down by fundamental flaws: Cardinal Wojtyla, too Catholic; Governor Reagan, too American; Lady Thatcher, too Conservative. The Cardinal, an "orthodox rebel" in O'Sullivan's term, was seen as out of step with the increasing liberalization of the Church in the wake of Vatican II. As a non-Italian practicing behind the Iron Curtain, his chances of ascending to the Papacy seemed nil. Reagan was a successful politician, then in his second term as California Governor, and a darling of the Right. But his free-enterprise convictions, can-do optimism and stalwart anti-Communism seemed an anachronism in an age of stagflation, perceived limits to growth (misperceived it turned out) and détente with the Soviets. Being the "first off the treadmill" was "the only victory the arms race had to offer," wrote the chief U.S. arms control negotiator in 1975, reflecting widely held bi-partisan opinion at the time. Thatcher was the education minister in a weak Tory government that increasingly ceded economic policy to radical labor unions and presided over the continued diminution of Britain on the world stage. Thatcher's message of fiscal prudence, privatization, monetarism and individual initiative/self-reliance ran counter to the prevailing Keynesian economic standard of the time. As a woman, the highest office thought possible for her was Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister), and even that was considered a long-shot. O'Sullivan tells the story of how each of these "misfits" (my word, not his)rose to greatness in spite of their handicaps. They did not so much overcome obstacles, as changed the terms of the debate, and by the dawn of the 1990s, left the world a markedly better place - freer, more secure and prosperous - than it was twenty years earlier. I've read many books on this era (and lived through it) and can tell you that O'Sullivan's is one of the best. Recommended.
Comment | |
(Report this)
Search for books at
