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goo3r's review
dark
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Rick is the master when it comes to detailing the rise of the American right-wing. This book does a great job integrating not only the political machinations inside the campaigns, but also what was happening in the zeitgeist. It helps paint a more colorful picture of how and why these currents were gaining popularity. This book best fits within the pantheon of Rick's other books Nixonland and Reaganland, which I also highly recommend.
phpatrickhiggins's review
4.0
Not as good as Nixonland, because the procedural battle between Ford and Reagan leading up to the 76 Republican nomination, which went on forever, was really not that interesting, and most of the interesting Watergate stuff happened earlier in Nixonland. I haven't read the first of the informal trilogy, which is about Barry Goldwater. Goldwater is a pretty interesting part of this one.
jason_alexander's review
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
Sooo long.
Was really cool to get a sense of American culture and the zeitgeist at the time which ended up interesting me more than the super in-depth political stuff.
Really helps explain Reagan’s rise as someone who wasn’t alive during that time.
The end felt the most boring to me, the minutiae of delegate in-fighting at the 1976 convention got old after a bit and so I started to skim through that a little bit.
Was really cool to get a sense of American culture and the zeitgeist at the time which ended up interesting me more than the super in-depth political stuff.
Really helps explain Reagan’s rise as someone who wasn’t alive during that time.
The end felt the most boring to me, the minutiae of delegate in-fighting at the 1976 convention got old after a bit and so I started to skim through that a little bit.
wescovington's review
5.0
Rick Perlstein's massive 800+ page history of the American conservative movement from the end of Watergate through the 1976 election (actually just through the Republican Convention, tune in later to find out who won!) is another in an epic, yet controversial series by an avowedly liberal historian writing about the people he doesn't agree with. Despite the distinct liberal bent to the writing, the book holds up as an excellent work of history.
The book begins with the return of POWs from Vietnam and how they were co-opted by the scandal-plagued Nixon Administration to distract people from both Watergate and the failure of the Vietnam War. But, the book ultimately is not about Richard Nixon (covered in Perlstein's earlier work, Nixonland) but rather the man who would later become the most important figure in the American Conservative movement: Ronald Reagan.
Perlstein is clearly not a fan of Reagan and devotes a large chunk of the book examining how Reagan's childhood, education, and early years in Hollywood were quite the opposite of the image he presented as a politician. But, Reagan succeeded despite these apparent contradictions. And history has mostly not cared. Which is not to say that you can't find contradictions about just every other political figure in history.
The book appealed to me because the time period it covered (1973-76) was of a time when I was a kid (ages 7-10) and began to show an interest in politics and history. The Bicentennial celebration was a great source of interest to me, but so were the Watergate hearings. The 1976 Republican Convention was a fascinating show to me (and perhaps the last one where the outcome coming into the convention was truly in doubt).
Reagan did not win the Republican nomination in 1976. But, he still had a little bit more to give. Perlstein's last volume in this series is supposed to cover Reagan's presidency. That volume will be both eagerly awaited and vehemently hated depending upon your political leaning.
The book begins with the return of POWs from Vietnam and how they were co-opted by the scandal-plagued Nixon Administration to distract people from both Watergate and the failure of the Vietnam War. But, the book ultimately is not about Richard Nixon (covered in Perlstein's earlier work, Nixonland) but rather the man who would later become the most important figure in the American Conservative movement: Ronald Reagan.
Perlstein is clearly not a fan of Reagan and devotes a large chunk of the book examining how Reagan's childhood, education, and early years in Hollywood were quite the opposite of the image he presented as a politician. But, Reagan succeeded despite these apparent contradictions. And history has mostly not cared. Which is not to say that you can't find contradictions about just every other political figure in history.
The book appealed to me because the time period it covered (1973-76) was of a time when I was a kid (ages 7-10) and began to show an interest in politics and history. The Bicentennial celebration was a great source of interest to me, but so were the Watergate hearings. The 1976 Republican Convention was a fascinating show to me (and perhaps the last one where the outcome coming into the convention was truly in doubt).
Reagan did not win the Republican nomination in 1976. But, he still had a little bit more to give. Perlstein's last volume in this series is supposed to cover Reagan's presidency. That volume will be both eagerly awaited and vehemently hated depending upon your political leaning.
jsisco's review
4.0
There were rampant typographical errors, but the absurd amount of detail that went into this text is mind-boggling. Perlstein remains, to this day, at the top of the list for engaging and intelligent historical analysis.
He is, in one word, a visionary.
He is, in one word, a visionary.
tsharris's review
5.0
This is an amazing piece of work. While at times it seems as if Perlstein was just accumulating detail for its own sake, he actually manages to weave a convincing narrative of how the Republican Party shifted to the right in the wake of Watergate while telling the story of Ronald Reagan as both an instigator and a beneficiary of that shift. He successfully embeds the story of American conservatism in the broader story of American anxiety in the mid-1970s, drawing on a wide range of sources to illustrate how the anxious mood was manifest. And, again and again, he hammers home what has been the thesis of all of his books on the transformation of the American right: liberal elites repeatedly underestimated or misunderstood the mood on the right and in the nation at large. I take his point, although I'm not quite sure what he's getting at - what would have been different had coastal elites taken Reagan more seriously? Given that Perlstein implies that the rightward shift was the product of deep-seated social forces and not simply the result of strategic decisions by actors like Reagan, I don't see what difference it would have made had liberals been more attuned to the national mood. Still, I cannot describe this book as anything other than compulsively readable.
noahbw's review
4.0
So this book is REALLY long. But, Perlstien does really effectively transport us back in time through his voluminous description of culture. Almost everything in here I learned for the first time.