Nixonland - by Rick Perlstein (Paperback)

About the Book

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. Illustrated.

Book Synopsis

"Perlstein...aims here at nothing less than weaving a tapestry of social upheaval. His success is dazzling." --Los Angeles Times

"Both brilliant and fun, a consuming journey back into the making of modern politics." --Jon Meacham

"Nixonland is a grand historical epic. Rick Perlstein has turned a story we think we know--American politics between the opposing presidential landslides of 1964 and 1972--into an often-surprising and always-fascinating new narrative." --Jeffrey Toobin

Rick Perlstein's bestselling account of how the Nixon era laid the groundwork for the political divide that still resonates in America today.

Told with vivid urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America's turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency of the United States. Perlstein's epic account begins in the blood and fire of the 1965 Watts riots, nine months after Lyndon Johnson's historic landslide victory over Barry Goldwater appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus in the United States. Yet the next year, scores of liberals were tossed out of Congress, America was more divided than ever, and a disgraced politician was on his way to a shocking comeback: Richard Nixon. Between 1965 and 1972 America experienced no less than a second civil war. Out of its ashes, the political world we know now was born. Filled with prodigious research and driven by a powerful narrative, Rick Perlstein's magisterial account of how it all happened confirms his place as one of our country's most celebrated historians.

Review Quotes

"Nixonland is a grand historical epic. Rick Perlstein has turned a story we think we know -- American politics between the opposing presidential landslides of 1964 and 1972 -- into an often surprising and always fascinating new narrative. This riveting book, full of colorful detail and great characters, brings back to life an astonishing era -- and shines a new light on our own." -- Jeffrey Toobin author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

"A richly detailed descent into the inferno -- that is, the years when Richard Milhous Nixon, 'a serial collector of resentments, ' ruled the land." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Rick Perlstein has written a fascinating account of the rise of Richard Nixon and a persuasive argument that this angry, toxic man will always be part of the American landscape." -- Richard Reeves author of President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination

"Rick Perlstein's Nixonland digs deep into a decisive period of our history and brings back a past that is all the scarier for its intense humanity. With a firm grasp on the larger meaning of countless events and personalities, many of them long forgotten, Perlstein superbly shows how paranoia and innuendo flowed into the mainstream of American politics after 1968, creating divisive passions that have survived for decades." -- Sean Wilentz Princeton University, author of The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008

"This is a terrific read. What a delight it is to discover the new generation of historians like Rick Perlstein not only getting history correct but giving us all fresh insights and understanding of it." -- John W. Dean Nixon's White House counsel

"The best book written about the 1960s." -- Newsweek