Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" is a telling of the tumultous 1960s through a relatively new and witty voice. This is my first Pearlstein read, and I'm sure more will follow - this is a writer to listen to and hear from. About the only follow up work I could recommend would take you back more than a decade; "In Rerospect, " by former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, published in 1995. Pearlstein wasn't around to live these scenarios first hand, but his research makes all of us who did rethink the whole process, what we were thinking at the time, (if we were thinking at all) and where some our passions were. It was far too many for many of us, myself included, to carry a sign and say we were against the War and champion the rebelliousness of the era, much more to actually get out and show colors of involvement.
I was hearing a message from the music I listened to: Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield, Cream, Blind Faith, The Beatles, Stones, and the Doors. I could smell a classic a mile away. I knew Crosy, Stills, Nash, and Young's "Deja Vu" was going to be a long remembered album, it would be pivotal to understanding the decade, but that was about all I was hearing. Other than disseminating views on the then-current rock and roll scene I considered the 1960s a stretch of paranoic fears and mistrusts that would compel me further and further into myself. I disrusted and feared people and kept to myself. It took me years to become vulnerable and I look back on that ten years as the worst of my life.
"Nixonland" at page 444 is more than compelling, more than historic, more than just another backward glance. It shows how the cult of Nixon grew up around the events of the times. Perlstein is compassionate but irrascibly and incisively charming. He tosses in tinges of humor. No one interested in this time period should miss it. I even told my neighbor, Steve, who has made a commitment to cut the trees and brush along the fence line, that if he would read Nixonland, I'd buy him a copy. He has contended for some months now that he is the greatest element to come out of the 1960s. I just want him to see what kind of world he was born in to.
Nixonland at page 444 surpasses what I thought it would be. Put down the Koontz, King, and McBain novels and crack this book and see why.
I was hearing a message from the music I listened to: Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield, Cream, Blind Faith, The Beatles, Stones, and the Doors. I could smell a classic a mile away. I knew Crosy, Stills, Nash, and Young's "Deja Vu" was going to be a long remembered album, it would be pivotal to understanding the decade, but that was about all I was hearing. Other than disseminating views on the then-current rock and roll scene I considered the 1960s a stretch of paranoic fears and mistrusts that would compel me further and further into myself. I disrusted and feared people and kept to myself. It took me years to become vulnerable and I look back on that ten years as the worst of my life.
"Nixonland" at page 444 is more than compelling, more than historic, more than just another backward glance. It shows how the cult of Nixon grew up around the events of the times. Perlstein is compassionate but irrascibly and incisively charming. He tosses in tinges of humor. No one interested in this time period should miss it. I even told my neighbor, Steve, who has made a commitment to cut the trees and brush along the fence line, that if he would read Nixonland, I'd buy him a copy. He has contended for some months now that he is the greatest element to come out of the 1960s. I just want him to see what kind of world he was born in to.
Nixonland at page 444 surpasses what I thought it would be. Put down the Koontz, King, and McBain novels and crack this book and see why.
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