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Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (Hardcover)

by Rick Perlstein (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 896 pages
  • Publisher: Scribner; 1st Scribner Hardcover Ed edition (7 Jul 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0743243021
  • ISBN-13: 978-0743243025
  • Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 16.3 x 5.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 133,308 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #15 in  Books > History > North America > Post-war Period, 1946-Present
    #28 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Political Structure & Processes > Elections & Referendums

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Product Description

Product Description

NIXONLAND begins in the blood and fire of the Watts riots - one week after President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, and nine months after his historic landslide victory over Barry Goldwater seemed to have heralded a permanent liberal consensus. The next year scores of liberals were thrown out of Congress, America was more divided than ever, and a disgraced politician was on his way to a shocking comeback: Richard Nixon. Six years later, President Nixon, harvesting the bitterness and resentment borne of that blood and fire, was re-elected in a landslide even bigger than Johnson's, and the outlines of today's US politics of red-and-blue division became distinct.
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8 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Perlstein Land, 19 Jul 2008
Perlstein is a scion of the 60s. Through reading a lot of newspapers and mining a lot of television, he has constructed an imaginary world called Nixonland. Nixonland, like Hobbitland, exists in the mind of the fabulist. Perlstein has also reconstructed, in this same manner, many of the events of the 50s and 60s in fascinating and often compelling narrative detail. As a popular history of these times, Nixonland is an exciting and sometimes fresh read. As a paradigm for understanding America in the postwar era, the concept of `Nixonland' is extremely limited. The limitations of the concept are readily apparent, for example, in the race narrative that Perlstein grapples with throughout the book.

To conclude, as Perlstein does, that Nixonland `has not ended yet' is true but meaningless. Nixonland does exist, but not in the way Perlstin imagines. It is in fact the place where the 60s go to die. It is the remote magic mountain nursing home for those unable or unwilling to recover from the past, where the patients live in the twilight of a rapidly fading era. Most of the kids today don't visit the nursing home, except occasionally on grandpa's birthday, when he tells them stories of cities burning, John and Yoko in bed for peace, and `radical' philosophy be-ins, but leaves out the part where he took acid and ran half-naked in the streets before becoming a lawyer and moving to the suburbs. Nixonland is the same kind of invented place as John Ford's American West.

Had Nixon never become president, the arc of his career would have still held some interest for historians, but he hardly invented the Orthogonians versus Franklins (Perlstein's rhubric) conflict, a theme that has been salient throughout American history. Nixon was one player in the postwar drama, and a fascinating one, skilled at exploiting social rifts for political gain, but hardly the master metallurgist forging a new social alloy. The subtitle of the book includes the phrase, `the fracturing of America'. It's hard to know what that means, especially after reading the book. Fractures, fissures, social conflict (think FDR and his `moneyed interests'), and violence have marked American life for centuries, driving the social dynamic of the country. Nixon is one variant of the venal, cynical, manipulative, and corrupt American politician. In this he has keen competition, including among those who achieved the presidency.

The book repays reading and one should anticipate with enthusiasm a further instalment where Perlstein will presumably draw out the picture of a fractured America.
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2.0 out of 5 stars It reads like a thriller, but the author misses the point, 5 Nov 2009
By Thomas Koetzsch (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Nixonland: America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon, 1965-1972 (Paperback)
In 1964, the Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson won the biggest landslide in American history by taking 61.05% of the popular vote. In 1972, the Republican presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon won a similar landslide by taking 60.67% of the popular vote. This book is about what happened in the eight years in-between.

And let me tell you it is quite a story. The author's narrative gives you the impression that the US is on the verge of civil war. The war in Vietnam pops up frequently - as it would - but the book gives the impression that it is almost a minor irritant compared to what's going on in American society in general during this time period. I love the way the author brings the narrative to life making this book a real page turner. And if it was just a book on recent US-history this should be rated a solid 5 stars.

However, from the author's point of view this is not just a piece of history but a decisive time period where there was a shift to conservatism, which is still present today. However, the author does not provide any evidence that that shift actually took place and the harder he tries the more he unmakes himself. Instead the central message of the book appears to be: "Richard Nixon is a Number One manipulator and I am going to prove it." I didn't find that proof in the book.

The book's title is "Nixonland" but it could equally well have been Johnsonland, but I guess the name Nixon sells better. Richard Nixon would have made it to the top in any country because he was an excellent operator in the game of politics, which is an indispensable requirement for making it to the top in any organisation.
In that respect, I always found his nickname `Tricky Dick' a good laugh, because he never struck me as being any trickier than any of his competitors, who were just as dirty rascals as any politician undoubtedly is.
What may have helped Nixon's rise in the US and his re-election in 1972 in particular - apart from his track record in office that is - was that from 1966 to 1972 the Democratic Party re-invented itself in such a way that it became virtually unelectable. There is plenty of evidence in the book to support this statement. The fact that the Party did rather well in the 1970 mid-term election is the only real freak event here.

I found the statement "The fracturing of America" a somewhat meaningless statement. The 1960s were no doubt an unusual period in recent history not only in the US but in a lot other countries as well. But this is not an outstanding event in human history. These upheavals have happened before the 1960s and will do so again in future.

In two pages of conclusions the author tells the reader what the previous 746 pages were about. There are only two points here. Firstly, I found them unnecessary and secondly I wondered if the author and I read the same book.

As I said earlier, this is an excellent piece of recent US history but nothing else. Any deeper meaning of the book remains safely hidden.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars truth more venal than fiction, 14 Oct 2009
By G. Davis (Tokyo) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Whatever low opinion you might think you have of Nixon, read this and you'll have to revise it downwards. He really was a lowlife among lowlives. Great fun, too, connecting latter day Republican movers and shakers with the events of the 60s and 70s; Karl Rove making an early appearance, for example, sending a rival campaign to completely the wrong city by diverting their flights. And that is entry level dirty behaviour. Magnificent for fans of the venal in politics.
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