Nixonland

A critically acclaimed history that reveals how the Nixon era laid the groundwork for America’s current political divide—“brilliant and fun” (John Meacham).

Told with vivid urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America’s turbulent 1960s and early 1970s as it chronicles Richard Nixon’s unlikely resurrection from the political grave to take hold of the US presidency. Rick Perlstein’s epic account begins in the blood and fire of the 1965 Watts riots, nine months after Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus in the United States.

Yet the next year, scores of liberals were tossed out of Congress, America was more divided than ever, and a disgraced politician was on his way to a shocking comeback: Richard Nixon. Between 1965 and 1972, America experienced no less than a second civil war. Out of its ashes, the political world we know now was born. Filled with prodigious research and driven by a powerful narrative, Perlstein’s magisterial account of how it all happened confirms his place as one of our country’s most celebrated historians.

“Perlstein . . . aims here at nothing less than weaving a tapestry of social upheaval. His success is dazzling.” —Los Angeles Times

A New York Times Notable Book