Ezra's Bookshelf

Nixonland

by Rick Perlstein · 896 pages · ~16.5 hrs

HistoryPolitics & Government

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Rick Perlstein traces how Richard Nixon rose from his 1962 political obituary to become president and, in the process, reshaped American politics into the form we recognize today. The book covers the years 1965 to 1972, when America experienced what Perlstein calls a second civil war between forces of order and forces of change. Urban riots, antiwar protests, the counterculture, and white backlash created the divisions Nixon exploited to build his 'silent majority' coalition. Perlstein shows Nixon as a figure of genuine political genius, reading the national mood with uncanny accuracy while feeding resentments that would outlast his presidency. The book is equally attentive to the other side: the idealistic movements for civil rights, peace, and liberation that provoked the backlash. Perlstein's achievement is showing both camps as genuine movements with millions of adherents, not cartoons of each other's imagination. The narrative encompasses landmark events—the 1968 Chicago convention, Kent State, the 1972 landslide—while also tracking the cultural shifts that made them possible. For understanding how American politics became so polarized, this history provides essential context.

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