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A review by bwlane
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein
3.0
I thought this was a reasonable piece of coverage on Nixon's life and work to the presidency, although it takes a curious tack: while positing Nixon's all-consuming paranoia helped Tricky Dick divide the world along two paths, the rich elite (the Franklins) and the hardscrabble, bootstrap achievers (the Orthogonians), Perlstein himself descends into successive layers of scapegoating and conspiracy theorizing over how much Nixon controlled events in the 1960s himself. This seemed, simply, wrong.
As a work of speculative fiction, I could see that kind of approach as a solid way to produce insight about the man, but as nonfiction, the book felt a little crazy at times. All the same, it was a breezy read and fascinating in parts. I would like to read more books about RMN to fill in a lot of the holes.
As a work of speculative fiction, I could see that kind of approach as a solid way to produce insight about the man, but as nonfiction, the book felt a little crazy at times. All the same, it was a breezy read and fascinating in parts. I would like to read more books about RMN to fill in a lot of the holes.