"By the end of the 1980s, many Americans looked at the state of the nation with a renewed optimism. America was the world's only superpower, Communism had been defeated, the economic misery and inflation of the late Seventies and early Eighties had given way to prosperity and vast global wealth, and a new swashbuckling patriotism had entered into the public imagination. This patriotism and optimism was personified by an enduring American president - Ronald Wilson Reagan. The essays in this volume revisit the 1980s in order to examine the factors that contributed to Ronald Reagan's political and cultural triumphs as well as assessing the political, social, and economic substance and legacy of his policies - not just for Americans but for the shape of the world order."--Jacket.