Introduction: The Reagan Moment
Introduction: The Reagan Moment
The relationship between the United States and the world changed radically in the 1980s, and the figure of Ronald Reagan towered over these developments. The contours and consequences of U.S. foreign relations and international history in the 1980s merit sustained, focused scholarly treatment, and this volume endeavors to provide it. Key themes and touchstones bind its chapters together. The first set centers on the Cold War. It is vital to distinguish between the subject as a geo-ideological conflict and as a time period. The second set of themes flow from Reagan’s heroic idealism. A third set of themes relates to liberalism, the package of political constructs – democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and capitalism – whose adherents, however diverse their philosophical outlooks or policy orientations, seek to enumerate the rights and obligations of private actors and public authorities in the belief that individual self-expression ranks utmost, and that, in the absence of clear discrimination, the total, voluntary actions of individuals will redound to the greater good. How Ronald Reagan will be remembered will depend on how long the conception of America that his speeches, his policies, and his administration tried to conjure into being survives and prospers, at home and abroad. Thirty years since Reagan vacated the Oval Office, we are still living through his moment. Scholars, policymakers, and students the world over will wrestle with its legacies for decades more to come.
Reagan, 1980s, international history, globalization, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, U.S. foreign policy, Cold War, history of capitalism
Hunt, Jonathan
73c5c183-3b5c-4be7-834c-a0540e103e5f
Hunt, Jonathan
73c5c183-3b5c-4be7-834c-a0540e103e5f
Hunt, Jonathan
(2019)
Introduction: The Reagan Moment.
In,
Hunt, Jonathan and Miles, Simon
(eds.)
The Reagan Moment: America and the World in the 1980s.
Cornell University Press.
(Submitted)
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Abstract
The relationship between the United States and the world changed radically in the 1980s, and the figure of Ronald Reagan towered over these developments. The contours and consequences of U.S. foreign relations and international history in the 1980s merit sustained, focused scholarly treatment, and this volume endeavors to provide it. Key themes and touchstones bind its chapters together. The first set centers on the Cold War. It is vital to distinguish between the subject as a geo-ideological conflict and as a time period. The second set of themes flow from Reagan’s heroic idealism. A third set of themes relates to liberalism, the package of political constructs – democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and capitalism – whose adherents, however diverse their philosophical outlooks or policy orientations, seek to enumerate the rights and obligations of private actors and public authorities in the belief that individual self-expression ranks utmost, and that, in the absence of clear discrimination, the total, voluntary actions of individuals will redound to the greater good. How Ronald Reagan will be remembered will depend on how long the conception of America that his speeches, his policies, and his administration tried to conjure into being survives and prospers, at home and abroad. Thirty years since Reagan vacated the Oval Office, we are still living through his moment. Scholars, policymakers, and students the world over will wrestle with its legacies for decades more to come.
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Submitted date: 15 January 2019
Keywords:
Reagan, 1980s, international history, globalization, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, U.S. foreign policy, Cold War, history of capitalism
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Local EPrints ID: 431576
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/431576
PURE UUID: 62a82c67-a2f5-47f2-845f-59c5a3d8e6f5
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Date deposited: 10 Jun 2019 16:30
Last modified: 13 Mar 2024 19:10
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Contributors
Editor:
Jonathan Hunt
Editor:
Simon Miles
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