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| Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America | 
 enlarge | Author: Rick Perlstein
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $37.50
Buy New: $16.95
You Save: $20.55 (55%)
New (46) Used (14) Collectible (1) from $15.77
Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 772
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Scribner Hardcover Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 896
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 2
ISBN: 0743243021
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.924
EAN: 9780743243025
ASIN: 0743243021
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New - may have a small remainder mark on the edge.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Weak and Shallow June 29, 2008
4 out of 12 found this review helpful
The subject matter here is compelling, and Perlstein's initial thesis--Nixon's rise reflected a deep set of resentments running through the American policy--is interesting. Ultimately, however, the case is poorly made, and the book disappointing. The more you dig through Perlstein's resentments the more you end up with old-fashioned racism triggered by the civil rights movement. The book seems mostly a set of reviews of newspapers linked by purple prose. The work seriously needs a professional editor (What do "the danker corners of Nixon's mind" look like?). I fear this is an exemplar of future historical studies where the research is clipped from online resources: shallow theses knit together by sensationalistic text.
 Boring June 30, 2008
4 out of 22 found this review helpful
Ok, Ok, we all know that Richard Nixon was a "boring" person & president- -- -he was a 1950s 1960s nerd of the first order, but why does Perlstein"s 800 + page book need to be as equally boring as the person he writes about? During the course of this book, we have a walk thru of every character, ever listed on the front page of the NY Times or WAJ during the 50's & 60's, taking up your reading time. That being said, there are some good sections in the book depending on what your political beliefs are - -- But, the book is so long and so tedious that one gets saturated with "era reports" rather than in depth data on Nixon! Perlstein also exacerbates the problem by not supplying dates for situations and events he discusses. The reader forgets where in Nixon's "Energizer Bunny" carrer they are as the story unfolds. I expected this book to be on the level of Eisenhower or John Adams, but alas, it fails all the tests --It should be prescribed by every MD nation wide for patients suffering from insomnia -- -it is a sure cure! What we have here is a 250 page story expanded to 800+ pages --
 The right temperature July 17, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Rick Perlstein's new book, "Nixonland", appeals to two groups, I would suggest; those of us who grew up with Richard Nixon and those who missed him in real life, only to be assuaged by his legacy. On those two levels, the author has scored well...he's attracted both audiences.
As Franklin Roosevelt commanded the first half of the American twentieth century, Richard Nixon assumed the latter. Perlstein couches his book in "Franklin" and "Orthogonian" sides...the latter, from which, Nixon battled. It's a successful argument and one that reminds us that although the author grew up at a time after Nixon had faded from view, he has his temperature down to a tee.
"Nixonland" is brilliant and a book I highly recommend. This may be the year of Obama...or maybe the year of "anti-Bush". Yet Nixon set the stage for it all, and the parallels to the current administration bear witness to all that went before, as defined by President Nixon, himself.
 Perlstein Land July 19, 2008
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
Perlstein is a scion of the 60s. Through reading a lot of newspapers and mining a lot of television, he has constructed an imaginary world called Nixonland. Nixonland, like Hobbitland, exists in the mind of the fabulist. Perlstein has also reconstructed, in this same manner, many of the events of the 50s and 60s in fascinating and often compelling narrative detail. As a popular history of these times, Nixonland is an exciting and sometimes fresh read. As a paradigm for understanding America in the postwar era, the concept of `Nixonland' is extremely limited. The limitations of the concept are readily apparent, for example, in the race narrative that Perlstein grapples with throughout the book.
To conclude, as Perlstein does, that Nixonland `has not ended yet' is true but meaningless. Nixonland indeed exists, but not in the way Perlstein imagines. In fact it is the imaginary place where the 60s go to die. It is the remote magic mountain nursing home for those unable or unwilling to recover from the past, where the patients live in the twilight of a rapidly fading era. Most of the kids today don't visit the nursing home, except occasionally on grandpa's birthday, when he tells them stories of cities burning, John and Yoko in bed for peace, and `radical' philosophy be-ins, but leaves out the part where he took acid and ran half-naked in the streets before becoming a lawyer and moving to the suburbs. Nixonland is the same kind of invented place as John Ford's American West.
Had Nixon never become president, the arc of his career would have still held some interest for historians, but he hardly invented the Orthogonians versus Franklins (Perlstein's rhubric) conflict, a theme that has been salient throughout American history. Nixon was one player in the postwar drama, and a fascinating one, skilled at exploiting social rifts for political gain, but hardly the master metallurgist forging a new social alloy. The subtitle of the book includes the phrase, `the fracturing of America'. It's hard to know what that means, especially after reading the book. Fractures, fissures, social conflict (think FDR and his `moneyed interests'), and violence have marked American life for centuries, driving the social dynamic of the country. Nixon is one variant of the venal, cynical, manipulative, and corrupt American politician. In this he has keen competition, including among those who achieved the presidency.
The book repays reading and one should anticipate with enthusiasm a further installment where Perlstein will presumably draw out the picture of a fractured America.
NIxonland: Still With Us Today? July 27, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A sprawling, compulsively readable tale of a divided America spinning out of control over an unpopular, divisive war and civil rights and social justice issues. Perlstein argues that Richard Nixon helped end the consensus on Great Society liberalism, and divided America along lines that still divide her. Perlstein paints a picture of Richard Nixon as a brooding, jealous loner, filled with resentments against more privileged opponents like the Kennedys, but also a master demagogue and mass manipulator who achieved election to the Presidency by playing on emergent generational and racial divisions. Perlstein does a good job of weaving the distinctive music and culture of the 60s into the tale. Apparently hastily written in places, loose with some facts, and a bit repetitive at times (e.g., Perlstein seems enamored of the phrase 'soiling humiliation' when discussing Nixon trolling for votes), this is nonetheless a first-rate history of a turbulent era, the effects of which are still being felt today.
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