In The Reagan Moment, the ideas, events, strategies, trends, and movements that shaped the 1980s are revealed to have had lasting effects on international relations: The United States went from a creditor to a debtor nation; democracy crested in East Asia and returned to Latin America; the People's Republic of China moved to privatize, decentralize, and open its economy; Osama bin Laden founded Al Qaeda; and relations between Washington and Moscow thawed en route to the Soviet Union's dissolution.

Introduction: The Man, or the Moment?, by Jonathan R. HuntPart One: Global and Domestic Issues1. Ronald Reagan and the Cold War, by Melvyn P. Leffler2. Energy and the End of the Evil Empire, by David Painter3. Reagan and the Evolution of US Counterterrorism, by Christopher Fuller4. Global Reaganomics: Budget Deficits,Capital Flows, and the International Economy, by Michael De GrootPart Two: Western and Eastern Europe5. Confronting the Soviet Threat: Reagan's Approach to Policymaking, by Elizabeth Charles and James Wilson6. Once More, with Feeling: Transatlantic Relations in the Reagan Years, by Susan Colbourn and Mathias Haeussler7. Ronald Reagan and the Nuclear Freeze Movement, by Stephanie FreemanPart Three: Human Rights and Domestic Politics8. Rhetoric and Restraint: Ronald Reagan and the Vietnam Syndrome, by Mark Atwood Lawrence9. Compartmentalizing US Foreign Policy: Human Rights in the Reagan Years, by Sarah Snyder10. Between Values and Action: Religious Rhetoric, Human Rights, and Reagan's Foreign Policy, by Lauren Frances TurekPart Four: Latin America11. Reframing Human Rights: Reagan's "Project Democracy" and the US Intervention in Nicaragua, by William Michael Schmidli12. Reagan and Pinochet's Chile: The Diplomacy of Disillusion, by Evan D. McCormick13. Anticommunism, Trade, and Debt: The Reagan Administration and Brazil, 1981-1989, by James CameronPart Five: The Middle East and Africa14. The Limits of Triumphalism in the Middle East: Israel, the Palestinian Question, and Lebanon in the Age of Reagan, by Seth Anziska15. The Central Front of Reagan's Cold War: The United States and Afghanistan, by Robert Rakove16. The Reagan Administration and the Cold War Endgame in the Periphery: The Case of Southern Africa, by Flavia GasbarriPart Six: South and East Asia17. Reagan and the Crisis of Southwest Asia, by Elisabeth Mariko Leake18. Adam Smith's Arthritis: Japan and the Fears of American Decline, by Jennifer Miller19. One World, Two Chinas: Dreams of Capitalist Convergence in East Asia, by Jonathan R. HuntConclusion: Reagan Reconsidered, by Simon Miles