Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

Product Information

Perlstein is frequently cited these days by middlebrow political commentators in the us as someone with his finger supposedly on the pulse of history.A self-identified left-liberal Democrat—useless though such terms are as political locators in a talk-radio grading system that slots Teddy Kennedy in as a Spartacist—Perlstein contributed a long and rather laboured essay for the Summer 2004 issue of the Boston Review on what the Democrats should do. It added up to a vague call for return to some sort of fdr programme. Nixonland, then, offers historical grounding for these sympathies; appropriately enough, its title comes from words spoken by Adlai Stevenson on the campaign trail in 1956: But Perlstein’s coverage is far sharper on evolving American culture than on Nixon’s life or political career. While Nixon’s life may be the hub of the wheel, most of the narrative is spent exploring the spokes. And it will not take many readers long to recognize that Perlstein’s view of Nixon is decidedly negative. Nixonland was originally published in 2008, at the tail-end of eight tumultuous years of terrorism, war, and recession. While it is easy to forget now, in light of our present situation, but the presidency of George W. Bush was hugely tumultuous, and Perlstein wrote from that frame of reference. As for the book itself, Perlstein's writing style is personable, interesting, and engaging. He treats his narrative voice self-consciously, frequently presenting events speaking from Nixon's perspective (or that of his prejudices), giving us a certain insight into the man's psychology (while disavowing that this book is meant as a psychobiography, which it definitely is not). However, his narrative voice may be a bit too glib and winking for some readers. One habit I found particularly annoying was his insistence on referring to major political figures by diminutive versions of their first names, even when those are not the names by which they are famous, and in one or two cases where this introduces some ambiguity. Also, he's quite ready to throw in references to some famous figures as asides, with no explanation. This poses less difficulty for the reader who is already a political junkie with a good knowledge of the last forty years' history, but I can imagine, in fifty years' time, that it might make the book unreadable in parts. And I swear I'll scream if I see another politician described as "glad-handing," whatever that even means. The rise of twin cultures of left- and right-wing vigilantes, Americans literally bombing and cutting each other

With so much going on, Perlstein is obviously not able to cover everything in depth. Instead, he hones in on the social-political aspects of these years, focusing on the way that politicians spoke to the electorate, and how the electorate reacted in turn. In doing so, he looks beyond the campaigns to survey movies, television shows, and books, as a way to gauge changing moods. What I believe RP wishes me to extract from this howling tumult was three big ones. RP characterises the 50s and early 60s as a time of optimism, culminating in LBJ’s civil rights legislation 64-66. But then it all splintered . What happened NEXT was a) Vietnam – its immorality became too painful, the American dead unignorable – 50,000 by 1970; and the draft meant that YOU or your son might be next up Perlstein...aims here at nothing less than weaving a tapestry of social upheaval. His success is dazzling.” — Los Angeles Times In the Nixon presidential years a wide variety of illegal activities ranging from revenge upon the president's long list of enemies to the hiding of international war crimes conducted in southeast Asia occupied much of his time even before the Watergate break-in was conducted.

Table of Contents

They have to be worn to be understood… They give the ankles a freedom as if to invite dancing right on the street… p542 Between 1965 and 1972 America experienced a second civil war. Out of its ashes, the political world we know today was born. You know, I would have six or seven or eight different strands to think about, kind of untangling that. Perlman's writing is good and flows well but sometimes the paragraphs are stuffed with too many facts. Perhaps because Perlman has a very solid grasp on the history of the 1960s through 1972, there isn't much to dispute here other than the sparse coverage of topics. His point is that when Trump “keeps doing things proven unpopular to all but the fascistically inclined, maybe he sees his audience as the fascistically inclined – those more useful to him for keeping permanent power than mere voters”.

Asking huge questions about American identity that are just as relevant now, is a powerful look at the lasting legacy of Nixon’s era. No, if Perlstein has a bias, it is a bias against politicians in general, and he writes of these (mostly) men in a tone that just avoids self-righteousness.

Perlstein was born in 1969, the first year of the Nixon presidency. He writes, however, like he was in the middle of it. His narrative is lively, ironic, and ultimately, depressing. The country, in the years since, has not progressed but regressed. Nixon, in retrospect, looks like a wise man. Despite his "enemies list" he seems a civil libertarian compared to what we have now. Surely he is responsible for the beginnings of what American politics have descended into, but other, more skilled practitioners have dug the hole far deeper than Milhouse could ever have dreamed. This was a hard book for me to get through. I had to take breaks and read two other books while getting through this one. It was a bit slow going, and also depressing. I had seen that face so many times before—hard, bitter, scurvy—all those things I had seen in his face on the bodies of nighttime burglars who had been in prison for at least ten years.

How does Perlstein feel about the Never Trumpers, Republicans working to eject a Republican from the White House itself?Indeed, few politicians mastered the art of positive polarization so well as the man whose majority Richard Nixon set out to undo. Much of Nixon’s divisive rhetoric owes an obvious debt to FDR—the Roosevelt who pitted the “forgotten man” against the “economic royalists”; who pledged “to restore America to its own people”; who scapegoated businessmen and Wall Street as relentlessly as Richard Nixon scapegoated intellectuals and media mandarins (if we remember Nixon as a vastly more polarizing figure than FDR, it’s perhaps because his targets were more likely to end up writing history books); and who anticipated Spiro Agnew in his broadsides against an un-American elite: “They are unani­mous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.” Filmmaker Sierra Pettengill was inspired by the book for her research on the 2022 documentary film Riotsville, U.S.A. [13] See also [ edit ]