Tear Down This Wall
Tear Down This Wall

Author: Romesh Ratnesar

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2009-11-03

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1439170053

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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 book, Romesh Ratnesar provides an account of how Reagan arrived at his defining moment and what followed from it. The book 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 twentieth 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. Elegant and dramatic, Tear Down This Wall is the definitive account of one of the most memorable speeches in recent history and a reminder of the power of a president's words to change the world.

Tear Down the Walls
Tear Down the Walls

Author: Patrick Burke

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-05-10

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 022676821X

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"Rock and roll's most iconic, not to mention wealthy, pioneers are overwhelmingly white, despite their great indebtedness to black musical innovators. Many of these pioneers were insensitive at best and exploitative at worst when it came to the black art that inspired them. Tear Down the Walls is about a different cadre of white rock musicians and activists, those who tried to tear down walls separating musical genres and racial identities during the late 1960s. Their attempts were often naïve, misguided, or arrogant, but they could also reflect genuine engagement with African American music and culture and sincere investment in anti-racist politics. Burke considers this question by recounting five dramatic incidents that took place between August 1968 and August 1969, including Jefferson Airplane's performance with Grace Slick in blackface on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Jean-Luc Godard's 1968 film, Sympathy for the Devil, featuring the Rolling Stones and Black Power rhetoric, and the White Panther Party at Woodstock. Each story sheds light on a significant but overlooked facet of 1960s rock-white musicians and audiences casting themselves as political revolutionaries by enacting a romanticized vision of African American identity. These radical white rock musicians believed that performing and adapting black music could contribute to what in the Black Lives Matter era is sometimes called "white allyship." This book explores their efforts and asks what lessons can be learned from them. As white musicians and activists today still attempt to find ethical, respectful approaches to racial politics, the challenges and victories of the 1960s can provide both inspiration and a sense of perspective"--

The Collapse
The Collapse

Author: Mary Sarotte

Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)

Published: 2014-10-07

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0465064949

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On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.

Tearing Down the Walls
Tearing Down the Walls

Author: Monica Langley

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2004-04-27

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 9780743247269

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He is one of the world's most accomplished figures of modern finance. As chairman and chief executive officer of Citigroup, Sanford "Sandy" Weill has become an American legend, a banking visionary whose innovativeness, opportunism, and even fear drove him from the lowliest jobs on Wall Street to its most commanding heights. In this unprecedented biography, acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter Monica Langley provides a compelling account of Weill's rise to power. What emerges is a portrait of a man who is as vital and as volatile as the market itself. Tearing Down the Walls tells the riveting inside story of how a Jewish boy from Brooklyn's back alleys overcame incredible odds and deep-seated prejudices to transform the financial-services industry as we know it today. Using nearly five hundred firsthand interviews with key players in Weill's life and career -- including Weill himself -- Langley brilliantly chronicles not only his success and scandals but also the shadows of his hidden self: his father's abandonment and his loving marriage; his tyrannical rages as well as his tearful regrets; his fierce sense of loyalty and his ruthless elimination of potential rivals. By highlighting in new and startling detail one man's life in a narrative as richly textured and compelling as a novel, Tearing Down the Walls provides the historical context of the dramatic changes not only in business but also in American society in the last half century.

Tear Down This Myth
Tear Down This Myth

Author: Will Bunch

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2009-02-03

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1416597727

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In this provocative new book, award-winning political journalist Will Bunch unravels the story of how a right-wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a personally popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and turned him into a bronze icon to revive their fading ideology. They succeeded to the point where all the GOP candidates for president in 2008 scurried to claim his mantle, no matter how preposterous the fit. With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the following: Despite the idolatry of the last fifteen years, Reagan's average popularity as president was only, well, average, lower than that of a half-dozen modern presidents. More important, while he was in office, a majority of Americans opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan's 1981 tax cut, weighted heavily toward the rich, did not cause the economic recovery of the 1980s. It was fueled instead by dropping oil prices, the normal business cycle, and the tight fiscal policies of the chairman of the Federal Reserve appointed by Jimmy Carter. Reagan's tax cut did, however, help usher in the deregulated modern era of CEO and Wall Street greed. Most historians agree that Reagan's waste-ridden military buildup didn't actually "win the Cold War." And Reagan mythmakers ignore his real contributions -- his willingness to talk to his Soviet adversaries, his genuine desire to eliminate nuclear weapons, and the surprising role of a "liberal" Hollywood-produced TV movie. George H. W. Bush's and Bill Clinton's rolling back of Reaganomics during the 1990s spurred a decade of peace and prosperity as well as the reactionary campaign to pump up the myth of Ronald Reagan and restore right-wing hegemony over Washington. This effort has led to war, bankrupt energy policies, and coming generations of debt. With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort to reshape America's future by rewriting its past. As the Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced and unearned reverence.

In Uncertain Times
In Uncertain Times

Author: Melvyn P. Leffler

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-05-15

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0801460816

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In Uncertain Times considers how policymakers react to dramatic developments on the world stage. Few expected the Berlin Wall to come down in November 1989; no one anticipated the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001. American foreign policy had to adjust quickly to an international arena that was completely transformed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro have assembled an illustrious roster of officials from the George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations—Robert B. Zoellick, Paul Wolfowitz, Eric S. Edelman, Walter B. Slocombe, and Philip Zelikow. These policymakers describe how they went about making strategy for a world fraught with possibility and peril. They offer provocative reinterpretations of the economic strategy advanced by the George H. W. Bush administration, the bureaucratic clashes over policy toward the breakup of the USSR, the creation of the Defense Policy Guidance of 1992, the expansion of NATO, the writing of the National Security Strategy Statement of 2002, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A group of eminent scholars address these same topics. Bruce Cumings, John Mueller, Mary Elise Sarotte, Odd Arne Westad, and William C. Wohlforth probe the unstated assumptions, the cultural values, and the psychological makeup of the policymakers. They examine whether opportunities were seized and whether threats were magnified and distorted. They assess whether academicians and independent experts would have done a better job than the policymakers did. Together, policymakers and scholars impel us to rethink how our world has changed and how policy can be improved in the future.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Author: Jeffrey A. Engel

Publisher: OUP USA

Published: 2011-10

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0199832447

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More than two decades after the Wall's collapse, this book brings together leading authorities who offer a fresh look at how leaders in four vital centers of world politics--the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, and China--viewed the world in the aftermath of this momentous event. Jeffrey Engel contributes a chronological narrative of this tumultuous period, followed by substantive essays by Melvyn Leffler on the United States, Chen Jian on China, James Sheehan on Germany and Europe, and William Taubman and Svetlana Savranskaya on the Soviet Union.

Marketers, Tear Down These Walls!
Marketers, Tear Down These Walls!

Author: Michael Solomon

Publisher: Bookbaby

Published: 2018-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781543923445

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We change our identities faster than a chameleon changes color. On Monday, you may be a Hugo Boss suit-wearing salaryman who listens to Adele, reads The Wall Street Journal, quaffs a greasy burger for lunch, and tunes in to Fox News. Come Saturday, out come the tats from underneath the starched collar, you ditch the suit for a Kid Dangerous tee and Vans kicks, you down a tuna pok with a craft beer, and listen to Imagine Dragons while you check out the latest issue of High Times. Just what lifestyle category do you belong to? Good luck to the marketer who tries to describe you. Today's postmodern consumer defies categorization--sometimes deliberately. S/he yearns to be liberated from cubicles, labels, "market segments," and especially those confining walls that restrict him or her from expressing the unique self that's constructed out of all the lifestyle "raw materials" that marketers of many stripes have to offer. The postmodern revolution requires marketers to revisit the walls they've erected over many years. That's not an easy thing to do. Conventional marketing strategies are built upon predictability, stability and the comfort in knowing that we can "understand" our customer yesterday, today and tomorrow. We love to put people into categories, and often into super-neat dichotomies--and call it a day. Those walls used to be solid, and marketers relied upon them to build a structure that formed the basis of their traditional strategic worldview. But now many of these walls are crumbling--and fast. They are like safety hazards that threaten successful brands from thriving in the postmodern revolution. And, they obstruct our view of the marketing possibilities that lie beyond them. In this book, I'll describe many familiar walls that form the bedrock of marketing strategy and thought today. Then I'll demolish them. Here are the walls that no longer exist, in convenient alphabetical order: Arts vs. Crafts Black vs. White Body vs. Belongings Editorial vs. Commercial Elite vs. the masses Fake vs. Authentic Friend vs. Stranger High art vs. Low art Home vs. Office Humans vs. Computers In here vs. Out there Kids vs. Teens Male vs. Female Me vs. Them Me vs. We Offline vs. Online Old vs. Mature Owning vs. Leasing Parent vs. Friend Producer vs. Consumer Reality vs. Fantasy Reality vs. Mythology Retailers vs. Customers Sacred vs. Profane Service providers vs. Consumers Then vs. Now Us vs. Them Work vs. Play Young vs. Old

How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life
How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life

Author: Peter Robinson

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 006174557X

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As a young speechwriter in the Reagan White House, Peter Robinson was responsible for the celebrated "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech. He was also one of a core group of writers who became informal experts on Reagan -- watching his every move, absorbing not just his political positions, but his personality, manner, and the way he carried himself. In How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life, Robinson draws on journal entries from his days at the White House, as well as interviews with those who knew the president best, to reveal ten life lessons he learned from the fortieth president -- a great yet ordinary man who touched the individuals around him as surely as he did his millions of admirers around the world.

Tearing Down The Wall of Sound
Tearing Down The Wall of Sound

Author: Mick Brown

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2012-10-17

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 1408819503

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In 2002, the reclusive and legendary record producer Phil Spector gave his first interview in twenty-five years to Mick Brown. The day after it was published an actress named Lana Clarkson was shot dead in Spector's LA castle. This is Brown's odyssey into the strange life and times of Phil Spector. Beginning with that fateful meeting in Spector's home and going on to explore his colourful and extraordinary life and career, including the unfolding of the Clarkson case, this is one of the most bizarre and compelling stories in pop history.