A review by ethanhedman
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

5.0

The author makes the argument that concrete and cyclical divisions existed between Americans and argues that Nixon heightened those contradictions in order to exploit them for political gain. It is this paradigm, Perlstein argues, of domestic politics between two factions, factions that come to hate each other so much they are willing to kill and maim each other, that is “Nixonland”.
Perlstein ends with this: “Do Americans not hate each other enough to fantasize about killing one another, in cold blood, over political and cultural disagreements? It would be hard to argue they do not. How did Nixonland end? It has not ended yet.”