Nixonland

The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

Hardcover, 640 pages

English language

Published May 13, 2008 by Scribner.

ISBN:
978-0-7432-4302-5
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4 stars (9 reviews)

From one of America's most talented historians comes a brilliant new account of Richard Nixon--set against the violent passions of America's 1960s civil war--that reveals the riveting backstory to the red state/blue state resentments that divide the nation today and the many ways Nixon used riots, anti-Vietnam War protests, the drug culture and other displays of unrest as an easy relief against which to frame his pitch for his narrow win of 1968 and landslide victory of 1972.

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Review of 'Nixonland' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

"Nixonland" by Rick Perlstein seeks to answer one of the most pressing riddles of modern American history - the origins of the violent and chaotic cultural shifts of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Utilizing the structure of four elections between 1964 and 1972, "Nixonland" explains how the United States went from LBJ's landslide in 1964 to Nixon's landslide in 1972. The argument has three main parts: First, after 1964 there was an illusion of a permanent liberal national consensus shattered by discontent and violence over Civil Rights and Vietnam. Second, Richard Nixon was the most adept at speaking to these anxieties and American's desire for quiet to gain support of the “Silent Majority” to gain support. Third, Nixon not only exploited these tensions but exacerbated them and entrenching the modern narrative of two diametrically opposed Americas.

The book takes a macroscopic-microscopic approach which tries to draw the contours of …

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Subjects

  • Political Process - Elections
  • United States - 20th Century
  • History / United States / 20th Century
  • United States - General
  • History
  • History - U.S
  • History: American

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