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

The country was already fractured by the time Nixon took office. Why do you think LBJ voluntarily gave up his second term? Protestors had already begun marching in the hundreds of thousands, chanting "Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many babies did you kill today?" Draft cards had long since started being burned by the thousands, race riots had already spread across the nation. So the title of the book is inaccurate. Nixon's presidency may have exacerbated things, but the greatest leaders imaginable couldn't have stopped the radical juggernaut that began in LBJ's term from rolling inexorably forward and completely altering the American landscape forever. And our commitment in Vietnam actually began under Eisenhower and was intensified under Kennedy, but it was on LBJ's watch that it all blew up in our faces. LBJ's failed presidency is what gave Nixon his 1968 election win to begin with. And actually, the seeds for the sixties' explosion were planted in the cultural changes of the 1950's (see David Halberstam's book, "The 1950's"). Living through the sixties' upheaval left indelible memories that no latter-day revisionist's take on things can possibly erase.

This is an outstanding and thoroughly entertaining history of American politics and culture (and how they intertwine) between 1964 - 1972. He details how Nixon succeeded as a politician because he learned lessons early on how to exploit people's fears for his gain. The main premise is that this strategy created the primary ideological divide--think liberal vs. conservative or blue vs. red--that exists in American today. Final paragraph: "How does Nixonland end? It has not ended yet." Even though this premise doesn't always hold up, I still cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I could not put this book down; it more than lives up to its considerable hype. Nearly all of the cliched political milestones of the 1960s are re-examined here with a poignant mix of sympathy and cold criticism. Reviewers who complain about the book's 'partisanship' miss the point - Perlstein identifies each and every clown to the left and joker to the right as such. Hippy-dippy phraseology like 'heightening the contradictions' was not just coffee-house Marcusian self-indulgence, but transparent will-to-violence that produces its own 'antithesis', insofar as it mirrors the spirit and tactics of the robust 'backlash' violence that still has the capacity to shock the reader in both its scale and intensity. And I cannot imagine another presidential campaign in American history as tragically sanctimonious, amateurish, and self-destructive as McGovern's 72 campaign, Perstein's treatment of which is the biggest delight among many in this feast of a book. Brilliant.

Nixon might not have come across as the most 'friendly' politician, but he certainly knew--and played his audience for everything which they were emotionally worth. His emotional outreach is a recipe for winning campaigns still being used by many American politicians today. This is because he understood that modern campaigns can be effectively won through playing on, and up, people's fears of each other!

Amidst all of the panic about 'family values' and 'crime' in today's world, we remain his moral majority. The topics have shifted over time, but the pervading sense of panic remains.

According to this book, Nixon (and contemporaries) come in promising to save us from what it is that had been labeled as being 'different' from our own environment. Because they are the candidate who works for 'sameness' they get the votes of the now-frightened population. Such returns occur even if delivering an effective policy solution is ultimately implausible. The important thing is that we elect the candidate into office; they won their election based on the whipped up hysteria and our bred suspicion of each other.

People are likely get out and vote when they are scared of change happening in their own immediate environment, whether it is economic or social/cultural. We're not going to have such urgency to head to the polls when everything appears fine with our lives! And for this, Nixon remain a very influential American president.

I am a student of Richard M. Nixon and was looking forward to reading Rick
Perlstein's "NIXONLAND" after hearing him on NPR discuss the book. I made myself read the 748 pages of Rick's random thoughts. Was his first draft published by mistake? Did Scribner assign an editor? Very little in the way of new information was exposed only the author's point of view. This could have been a very good book had someone told Perlstein to stop with the unlated side trips to nowhere. I expected more and got less.
Rog
Columbia, Md