Politically insightful, Nixonland recaptures the turbulent 60s & early 70s, revealing how Dick Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency. Perlstein's account begins with the '65 Watts riots, nine months after Johnson's landslide victory over Goldwater appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus. Yet the next year, scores of liberals were tossed from Congress, America was more divided than ever and a disgraced politician was on his way to a shocking comeback.
Between 1965 and 1972, America experienced a second civil war. From its ashes, today's political world was born. It was the era not only of Nixon, Johnson, Agnew, Humphrey, McGovern, Daley and Wallace; but Abbie Hoffman, Ronald Reagan, Angela Davis, Ted Kennedy, Charles Manson, John Lindsay and Jane Fonda. There are glimpses of Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Jesse Jackson, John Kerry and even of two ambitious young men named Karl Rove and Bill Clinton--and an unambitious young man named George W. Bush.
Filled with prodigious research, driven by a powerful narrative, Perlstein's account of how America divided confirms his place as one of our country's most celebrated historians.