Romesh Ratnesar
is Deputy Editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. A former Time deputy managing editor and foreign editor, he has reported from many countries around the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel and the Palestinian territories.
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Nov 2009
“Why the Wall Fell” in Time Magazine
Time just published a piece by me adapted from Tear Down this Wall. Here's an excerpt:
The fall of the Berlin wall caught the world by surprise. For months, East Germany's beleaguered communist rulers had tried in vain to silence a growing opposition movement and stem the tide of people pouring out of the country. On the night of Nov. 9, 1989, an East German official held a press conference to announce new government travel policies but inadvertently announced that crossings to the West would be opened "without delay." Within hours, thousands of East Berliners began lining up at checkpoints near the Wall. At first the border guards tried to check passports, but they quickly realized it was futile. The masses surged through. Many of them ran. Crowds of West Berliners waited on the other side, hugging strangers and popping champagne. The scenes were stunning. By the fall of 1989 cracks in the communist bloc had started to emerge. But few people imagined the Berlin Wall would disappear anytime soon.
Ronald Reagan did. "I didn't know when it would come, but I have to tell you, I'm an eternal optimist," the former President said in an interview with ABC's Sam Donaldson that night...
Read the rest and see images and related articles at the Time Magazine Website.
Photo from the Time Website, Credit: Tom Stoddart / Hulton Archive / Getty
Who killed communism? Look past the usual suspects.
Link: Who killed communism? Look past the usual suspects.
Here's an excerpt from an op-ed in the Washington Post:
Ratnesar is wiser than his book suggests. Proof comes from one immense contradiction. The book is subtitled "A City, a President, and the Speech That Ended the Cold War," yet deep within its pages Ratnesar lets slip his true feelings: "No single event, taken in isolation, caused the Cold War to end. . . . The final years . . . were a moving stream, the currents of history flowing in directions both unpredictable and unforeseen." After reading those sentences, I found myself wishing that he had used his considerable skills to chart that stream, instead of focusing on what was actually a small islet.
Oct 2009
Tear Down This Wall to be published November 3rd, 2009
I'm very excited to announce that Tear Down This Wall will be published November 3rd, 2009 by Simon & Schuster.
Publishers Weekly Review
"Time magazine deputy managing editor Ratnesar has mined American and East German archives to produce a lively, impressively detailed history of the iconic speech."
-Publishers Weekly
David Grann, Author of The Lost City of Z
"Romesh Ratnesar has produced a riveting account of one of the greatest speeches in modern times, which would have been enough. But along the way he has also written a brilliant and incisive history of the end of the Reagan Presidency and the Cold War. Tear Down this Wall affirms the power of words."
-David Grann, Author of The Lost City of Z
Sean Wilentz, Princeton University, author of The Age of Reagan
"Romesh Ratnesar's absorbing, fine-tuned account offers a valuable behind-the-scenes view of the Reagan White House at work -- and, on the other side of the Berlin Wall, of the world of the democratic dissidents whom Reagan uplifted. It is an important addition to the growing library on the Reagan era."
-Sean Wilentz, Princeton University, author of The Age of Reagan
Richard Norton Smith, author of The Colonel
"More than most presidents, Ronald Reagan governed through his speeches--never to greater effect than in his 1987 Berlin summons to 'Tear down this wall.' With the perspective of time, access to newly available papers, and a Reaganesque flair for storytelling with a point, Romesh Ratnesar gives us the ultimate insider's account of the history that unfolded when those around him, sometimes reluctantly, let Reagan be Reagan. No future discussion of the Cold War and how it ended will be complete without reference to this riveting book."
-Richard Norton Smith, author of The Colonel
Strobe Talbott, author of The Great Experiment
"The four words that Ronald Reagan hurled at Mikhail Gorbachev were an exhortation, even a demand, but they were also part of a dialogue, a partnership, and a friendship that changed the world. It is high time for a focused study of how that speech came to be written and why it was so consequential. Romesh Ratnesar has told the story with narrative verve, brilliant political and personal insight, and a combination of concision and pithiness worthy of the Great Communicator himself."
-Strobe Talbott, author of The Great Experiment
Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein
"Among the fascinating challenges facing historians are figuring out how Ronald Reagan's mind worked and assessing the factors that led to the end of the Cold War. Romesh Ratnesar weaves these together brilliantly. This is an exciting narrative that explains a critical moment in history and brings to life the amazing players in a great drama."
-Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein
Douglas Brinkley, author of Wilderness Warrior
"Romesh Ratnesar has written a smart and deeply illuminating history of Ronald Reagan at the zenith of the Cold War. Tear Down This Wall helps clarify a lot of misnomers about Reagan's most enduring speech. This is a fine, important, and admirable study. Highly recommended!"
-Douglas Brinkley, author of Wilderness Warrior
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