The dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the spread of Perestroika throughout the former Soviet bloc was a sea change in world history. Here acclaimed Russian historian Robert Service examines precisely how that change came about. Drawing on a vast and largely untapped range of sources, he builds a picture of the two men who spearheaded the breakthrough: Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, and Mikhail Gorbachev, last General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Authoritative, compelling and meticulously researched, this is political history at its best.