As someone who was very apolitical in the 80's, my political education took a high-speed gear shift since marrying a very politically conservative fellow who worked for Reagan in the late 80's. Reagan is a fascinating individual from his anti-communist battles as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, to his tenuous initial dealings with the Soviet bloc and Gorbachev. His role in bringing down the Iron Wall, and who to trust during the new era of peristroika (versus Nixon and Kissinger's very vocal opposite opinions) was controversial then and even now, as history continues to catalogue the sequence and importance of specific events. I was enthralled with Mann's rendition of the facts that comprised his particular theory of the end of the Cold War and Reagan's role.