Nearly twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end–or at least, the beginning of the end–of the Cold War, it seems that some people are still having trouble processing the lessons of the epic struggle. Not surprisingly, perhaps, one of those people, Andrew O’Hehir, writes for Salon.

O’Hehir reviews Archie Brown’s The Rise and Fall of Communism, and draws conclusions that are belied by the actual history of the Cold War. He repeats the trope that Ronald Reagan’s...