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A review by nickjagged
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein
3.0
This is a book of two halves. The front half is a febrile picture of Nixon's political career in the years leading up to the 1968 general election, which bears out Perlstein's thesis of Conservatism as a politics of resentment (as opposed to accounts that center Conservative intellectuals as the driving force of the movement). There is some editorializing, but it feels appropriate given the charged rhetoric of movements, both progressive and reactionary, from 1960 to 1968. Perlstein is in rare form here, balancing the narratives of activism, backlash, and back-room politics to more fully grasp the techniques employed by Nixon to triangulate the perfect path to victory. Then, it all falls apart.
The back half of the book (unintentionally?) illustrates what is elided when centering resentment as the primary force of Conservatism. If resentment is the name of the game, then how do we account for the incongruity of Nixon's domestic policy in his first term? Perlstein devotes barely a paragraph to the creation of the EPA (and almost nothing beyond that regarding Nixon's environmental policy decisions), and seems only willing to discuss welfare reform as a wedge issue Nixon aimed to leverage against the Democratic Party in the 1970 and 1972 elections. These are very interesting cases where policy undercuts clear explanation, offering a chance at a richer understanding of the inflection points between seemingly contradictory ideologies. Perlstein, however, sticks to the interplay between Nixon's foreign policy and the associated domestic reception as the embodiment of his resentment thesis. That, combined with his continued editorializing, produce a fairly inert account of Nixon's first term that fizzles out several chapters before the end.
Worth a look, but not essential.
The back half of the book (unintentionally?) illustrates what is elided when centering resentment as the primary force of Conservatism. If resentment is the name of the game, then how do we account for the incongruity of Nixon's domestic policy in his first term? Perlstein devotes barely a paragraph to the creation of the EPA (and almost nothing beyond that regarding Nixon's environmental policy decisions), and seems only willing to discuss welfare reform as a wedge issue Nixon aimed to leverage against the Democratic Party in the 1970 and 1972 elections. These are very interesting cases where policy undercuts clear explanation, offering a chance at a richer understanding of the inflection points between seemingly contradictory ideologies. Perlstein, however, sticks to the interplay between Nixon's foreign policy and the associated domestic reception as the embodiment of his resentment thesis. That, combined with his continued editorializing, produce a fairly inert account of Nixon's first term that fizzles out several chapters before the end.
Worth a look, but not essential.