Regular readers in this forum know that this correspondent tends to read a lot of books about Ronald Reagan. Some heap a great deal of praise on our 40th president; others blast him.

The latest is a book that praises Reagan, but not for the reasons one might expect. In The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War, James Mann dispenses with the myth that the president was an amiable dunce who just happened to hold this nation?s highest elected office as the Soviet Union started to crumble.

On the other hand, Mann rejects the notion that Reagan?s first-term military buildup and bellicose language (?evil empire,? ?ash heap of history,? and the like) paved the way for American victory over the Soviets.

Instead Mann credits Reagan?s ability during his second term to gauge just how different Mikhail Gorbachev was from previous Kremlin commanders. Mann contends that Reagan?s support of Gorbachev enabled the latter man to put domestic policies in place that hastened the Soviet Union?s collapse.

I don?t find Mann?s overall thesis convincing; he does too little to counter the argument that Reagan?s history of anti-communism and first-term defense priorities pushed the Soviet Union to elevate a change agent like Gorbachev instead of an aging Cold Warrior in the vein of Brezhnev, Andropov, or Chernenko. Mann seems to stretch the facts a little too far in suggesting that diplomacy alone ? without the threat of military might ? ended the conflict between East and West.

Nonetheless, Mann treats his subject fairly and offers interesting insights. Among them is this assessment of the famous 1987 Berlin Wall speech (a transcript of which takes up nearly eight pages in the heart of the book):

The new element in the substance of Reagan?s Berlin speech was not that the wall should come down, but that Gorbachev himself should take it down. This served a number of purposes. Reagan?s words called attention to the fact that the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe still depended on the Soviet Union; [East German dictator Erich] Honecker, who had personally overseen the construction of the wall, would never have had his job without Moscow. Even more significant, the speech set out a standard by which Gorbachev should be judged: Would his reforms be limited in scope, or would they change the existing order in Europe? The speech reaffirmed Reagan?s long-standing view that the ideological differences between the United States and the Soviet Union remained of fundamental importance. Finally, the speech buttressed Reagan?s public and congressional support inside the United States as he was preparing for further diplomacy with Gorbachev. He was protecting his political flanks, particularly on the right.