Despite being a long, thick tome, it was quite a page-turner. Especially since I came of age during these years (voting for the first time in 1972). But I never knew about the non-stop covert actions, and in such detail. It appears that Watergate was just the tip of the iceberg, so no surprise that Watergate was only mentioned in the last few chapters. That case would require another book. Honestly, though I did take a side and still do, it was painful and frustrating to read about the violent actions of both sides as my country was torn apart.

I will definitely look for Perlstein's other books, including: "The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan." ( )

I waited a long time for Rick Perlstein's second book in his series on conservatism in modern U.S. politics to become available through Libby. And let me tell you, this was a TOUGH book to read in November 2024, as it seems like everything that's happening today happened before and we learned nothing from it.

Whereas Richard Nixon was something of a punchline in Before the Storm, Perlstein's book about Barry Goldwater, here we see his comeback and rise to power after his humiliating back-to-back losses running for President in 1960 and Governor of California in 1962. Perlstein uses a framing device based on social clubs at Nixon's alma mater of Whittier College. The "Franklins" are the popular, good looking, and wealthy elite who have positions of influence handed to them (think of FDR and JFK), while Nixon identifies with the "Orthogonians," those who have to fight for power. While Orthogonians like Nixon have all the privileges of white, Christian men, they nevertheless have lots of grievances. Nixon's success come from mobilizing the grievances of what became known as "The Silent Majority."

This book is called Nixonland because it is not a straight biography of Nixon but a sprawling and detailed political history of the United States from the mid-60s to the early-70s. After Lyndon B. Johnson's landslide victory over Goldwater on a platform of civil rights and social welfare programs, the Democratic Party's consensus fell apart. On one side, urban uprisings and increasing militancy of Black activists terrified the white Orthogonians who used it as a pretext to declare the civil rights movement a failure. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party tore itself apart over Johnson's hawkish commitment to the war in Vietnam.

Perlstein's narrative traces the trends and crises that made it possible for a landslide victory for Nixon just 8 years after Johnson's. As an author, he has an engaging manner of bringing to life even familiar incidents in his writing. For example, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago is described as how it might have been seen by an ordinary American watching it on TV, complete with the commercial breaks for Gulf Oil. While the book ends with Nixon at his greatest success, it also contains the seeds of his demise with the events of the Watergate burglary. ( )

It’s amazing the extent to which we are still living in the political world created by the paranoid, disaffected, self-righteous Nixon and his enthusiastic supporters. Perlstein does quite a job illuminating the levels of hypocrisy and moral licensing that fed the Nixon campaigns’ corruption and underhanded maneuvering. Not to mention the credulous simplicity that led the media to repeatedly ignore such blatant wrongdoing, and the superior indifference with which the Left fanned the flames.

More impressive still is how clearly this book shows the roots of Trumpism and modern Republican politics. The parallels can’t have been purposeful, as it was published in 2008. But even down to the fine details (e.g., the Nixon campaign drastically—and obviously—inflating their crowd sizes), it’s impressive to see how far back these things really go.

You have to know what you’re signing up for when you start a book like this, obviously. It‘s quite a long read, and certainly dry in parts, but I think it’s one of the best things I’ve read for an understanding of the longer historical trends in modern American conservatism. ( )

There are, at the end of 2022, somewhere between 250 and 300 full-length books in print concerning Richard M. Nixon and his times. Leaving aside his self-serving memoir, "RN," these books range from the very specialized (Joe McGinness' "The Selling of the President 1968") to the expansive and scholarly (Stephen A. Ambrose's classic trilogy, "Nixon"), and most are worth reading or at least skimming. (Obviously, with so many accounts, the details can become somewhat repetitive.) "Nixonland," by Rick Perlstein, is notable primarily for its lack of focus and its meandering style. In nearly a thousand pages, Perlstein essays to cover Nixon's life from his college days up to his re-election to the presidency in 1972. If the reader is looking for a fairly complete, easily digestible chronicle of America in the 1960s, the book may serve its purpose. If, on the other hand, one is interested in understanding how Richard Nixon affected American government and political history, one's time would be better spent elsewhere. Between the minutiae and the lacunae, Perlstein's account of what Nixon meant to America is very sparse indeed.

Perlstein has previously published volumes on Eisenhower, Goldwater, and Reagan. He will, in all probability, continue his uninspired, shallow chronicles of Republican politicians with a book on Donald Trump. Those of us who have read the preceding books will avoid it: there are far too many legitimate analyses and critiques of Trump, or Nixon, to waste time with fluff.

Not recommended. ( )

Present day politics echo the past. Required. ( )