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A review by dexcg
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein
This took a long, long time to read, but I’m glad I read it. There’s such rich history in here, so much that I knew little about. Perlstein’s descriptions are vivid but grounded, the chapter on a day of the convention in ‘68 is a particularly great example.
I do think the book suffers from two flaws, although they do not diminish it from being an incredible work. The first is the slow decrease in the importance of racial relations as an aspect of Nixonland that should be discussed. After King’s death, there was not a ton of description of various instances besides one-liners about things happened. Kind of dampens the conclusion that race and the war were the two determining factors in ‘72. Also, his tendency to make equally condemnatory judgments on “both sides” feels forced at times. There are surely things to compare between Orthogonians/Franklins and Dems/Reps but there were a couple times where it simple felt like comparing apples and something that isn’t even a fruit like an orange.
Edit- After skimming through the review for this in The Atlantic and The New York Times, it is striking to read his conclusion in a radically different way 10 years after those reviewers were writing. Just this week, Ahmaud Arbery was, for all intents and purposes, lynched in Georgia. Armed protestors stormed the Michigan capital building. Our President was impeached. This looks a lot more like Nixonland than 2008 did.
I do think the book suffers from two flaws, although they do not diminish it from being an incredible work. The first is the slow decrease in the importance of racial relations as an aspect of Nixonland that should be discussed. After King’s death, there was not a ton of description of various instances besides one-liners about things happened. Kind of dampens the conclusion that race and the war were the two determining factors in ‘72. Also, his tendency to make equally condemnatory judgments on “both sides” feels forced at times. There are surely things to compare between Orthogonians/Franklins and Dems/Reps but there were a couple times where it simple felt like comparing apples and something that isn’t even a fruit like an orange.
Edit- After skimming through the review for this in The Atlantic and The New York Times, it is striking to read his conclusion in a radically different way 10 years after those reviewers were writing. Just this week, Ahmaud Arbery was, for all intents and purposes, lynched in Georgia. Armed protestors stormed the Michigan capital building. Our President was impeached. This looks a lot more like Nixonland than 2008 did.