Three Who Saved the West

[Valin]

The Weekly Standard:

WILLIAM KRISTOL

 

And now the last of them is gone. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II—three who won the Cold War and, it isn't too much to say, saved the West (at least for a while!)—are no longer with us. Their examples remain.

 

They knew what they believed but also knew they had to justify their beliefs, and that one could adjust prudently to circumstances without yielding on principle. They stood firm when in power, and they took risks to get there, challenging the conventional wisdom and the respective establishments of their nations or institutions. They were conservative but not nostalgic, and would counsel us today against excessive nostalgia for their deeds and their days. They would rather, I suspect, urge that we act in their spirit—what one might call a spirit of unapologetic but reformist conservatism.

 

(Snip)

 

Vid

The President The pope and the Prime Minister

Veteran journalist John O'Sullivan provides a dramatic account of how three great figures - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and President Ronald Reagan - changed the course of history and how their collaborative efforts revived faith, prosperity, and freedom in the West.

 

Book

The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World

John O'Sullivan

 

Book Description

Publication Date: September 23, 2008

The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister is a sweeping, dramatic account of how three great figures changed the course of history. All of them led with courage--but also with great optimism. The pope helped ordinary Poles and East Europeans banish their fear of Soviet Communism, convincing them that liberation was possible. The prime minister restored her country's failing economy by reviving the "vigorous virtues" of the British people. The president rebuilt America's military power, its national morale, and its pre-eminence as leader of the free world. Together they brought down an evil empire and changed the world for the better. No one can tell their intertwined story better than John O'Sullivan, former editor of National Review and the Times of London, who knew all three and conducted exclusive interviews that shed extraordinary new light on these giants of the twentieth century.