Nixonland: The Rise Of A President And The Fracturing Of America (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
Unexpectedly anecdotal, this is a hugely successful, very persuasive, massively depressing examination of the political shift in the US between the elections of 1964 and 1972 -- particularly harrowing are the discussions of the police violence surrounding the riots of late 1960s and the detailed examinations of the Nixon administration's dirty tricks. Definitely well worth the effort and time (holy crap is it long) to anyone interested in recent American history. A very solid history of the emergence of the "Culture Wars" in America using Richard Nixon as the catalyst and symbol of this divergence in the United States. It was a very thorough and sprawling account of the upheavals in the United States from 1966 to 1972 and readers are treated to the kaleidoscope of colorful figures and turbulent events of that time. You'll read about Pat Brown and Richard Nixon, Herbert Marcuse and Angela Davis, Robert McNamara, Jerry Rubin, and Tom Hayden, Henry Kissinger and Jane Fonda, Laugh-In and Hee-Haw and the Smothers Brothers. Virtually no stone from the 60s/70s is left unturned. The only really obnoxious thing about the book is some of Perlstein's non-scholarly asides in the text and his framing device of the "Franklins" and "Orthagonians," which really gets tiring throughout the duration of this long book.
What do You think about Nixonland: The Rise Of A President And The Fracturing Of America (2009)?
Typically one dimensional look at Nixon and the era he helped to define. Not worth the time ;)
—Anjoe
Very thorough account of a complex time in US history. I highly recommend it.
—chand
