Perlstein’s overarching thesis, tying together two parallel narratives involving American society and Nixon himself, is that Richard Nixon masterfully recognized, exploited and magnified cultural divisions which then persisted long past his presidency. It is a contention not easily dismissed, but many readers will appreciate that there is nothing new about America’s polarized politics (or culture). Asking huge questions about American identity that are just as relevant now, is a powerful look at the lasting legacy of Nixon’s era. Ah, that old one – wasn’t our fault! They made us kill all those women and children! A song which has been sweetly sung by everyone at one time or another, most recently by President Assad. They make me kill these children just so that I look really bad! How mean of them! Don’t you realise their little game? N ixonland is a historical narrative worth savoring—but one worth ar­guing with as well. Perlstein sets out to challenge what he terms “certain hegemonic narratives” of the ’60s. But, perhaps inevitably, he tends to be tougher on right-wing shibboleths—the notion that all of the era’s violence was left-wing; the idea that the media snatched away victory in Vietnam—than on liberal ones. Nixonland offers a vastly more nuanced account of how the New Deal coalition came apart than the predictable left-liberal story of noble Democrats undone by ruthless, race-baiting Republicans. (I’m looking at you, Paul Krugman.) But while Perlstein criticizes the liberal establishment for its self-satisfaction and naïveté—for believing that “if only Nixon’s people could truly see reason … their prejudices would melt away, their true interests would be recognized”—he still leaves the impression that when it came to public policy, mid-century liberalism almost always did have reason on its side. One of the prominent spokesmen for Vietnam Veterans Against the War was a “handsome, charismatic 27 year old” called John Kerry – yes, THAT John Kerry. I had no idea!

I found that this book, although a great read, as one would expect from a much honored journalist, contains a major flaw - at least from a historian’s perspective. Although Perlstein apparently felt he needed the devices of "national consensus" and its antagonist to enhance the drama in his narrative, he didn't establish at the outset that such a consensus existed for Nixon to assail and extinguish. And I doubt that such a consensus obtained at all. Goldwater and consensus in the same sentence? He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. With so much going on, Perlstein is obviously not able to cover everything in depth. Instead, he hones in on the social-political aspects of these years, focusing on the way that politicians spoke to the electorate, and how the electorate reacted in turn. In doing so, he looks beyond the campaigns to survey movies, television shows, and books, as a way to gauge changing moods.Short of destroying the entire country and its people, we cannot eliminate the enemy force in Vietnam by military means. Reported in the New York Times, October 1968. P423 These years were absolutely bonkers. One war raged in Vietnam; another flared in American streets. Watts erupted in flames. The National Guard was deployed in Newark. The Democratic Party went to Chicago to hold a convention, and decided instead to burn itself to the ground, live on national television. Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed. Martin Luther King was shot and killed. The odious George Wallace was shot and paralyzed. Weathermen planted bombs. Soldiers shot kids on college campuses. As president, Nixon stewed, plotted, dropped bombs on Cambodia and Laos, and surrounded himself with buffoons who were full of bizarre schemes and had ready access to slush funds. He cheated and broke laws and acted small and vindictively. He also had the far vision to look at Communist China and see the possibility of friendship rather than the inevitability of conflict.

The rise of twin cultures of left- and right-wing vigilantes, Americans literally bombing and cutting each other The student insurgency over the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the riots at the 1968 Democratic National ConventionThere were a couple things that stood out to me. Things that, maybe in retrospect aren’t that surprising, or maybe I actually already knew, but stood out with a little more clarity with the 5000 foot tour. The first part of the Yippie program is to kill your parents. And I mean that quite literally, because until you’re prepared to kill your parents you’re not ready to change this country. Our parents are our first oppressors. P475 Nixon was the first Republican president who was obsessed with power. Power was much much more important to him then doing the job of the president, which is to care for the welfare of the citizens of the United states. Up until Nixon, the presidents of the time new their job was to serve. To make this nation a great place to live. But since Nixon the Republicans have just been spiraling down hill, into an ever growing cesspool of power hungry, selfish, down right criminal pile of morons. The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. Richard Nixon acceding to the presidency pledging a new dawn of national unity--and governing more divisively than any before him.