'A richly detailed descent into the inferno - that is, the years when Richard Milhous Nixon, 'a serial collector of resentments,' ruled the land.' - Kirkus Reviews Filled with prodigious research and driven by a powerful narrative, Rick Perlstein’s magisterial account of how it all happened confirms his place as one of our country’s most celebrated historians. Out of its ashes, the political world we know now was born. Between 19 America experienced no less than a second civil war. 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. Perlstein’s epic account begins in the blood and fire of the 1965 Watts riots, nine months after Lyndon Johnson’s historic landslide victory over Barry Goldwater appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus in the United States.

Told with vivid urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America’s turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency of the United States. Rick Perlstein’s bestselling account of how the Nixon era laid the groundwork for the political divide that marks our country today. Rick Perlstein has turned a story we think we know-American politics between the opposing presidential landslides of 19-into an often-surprising and always-fascinating new narrative.” -Jeffrey Toobin

“Both brilliant and fun, a consuming journey back into the making of modern politics.” -Jon Meacham His success is dazzling.” - Los Angeles Times From Operation Gemstone to CREEP, from Whittaker Chambers to Watergate, from Checkers to Dita Beard, from the Committee of 100 to the Silent Majority, the overheated but barely narrative narratives that punctuate Nixon’s rise and fall represent a strange, paranoid, and unfinished political contest between reality and the dream.“Perlstein.aims here at nothing less than weaving a tapestry of social upheaval. Although the details of the break-in and its attempted cover-up are well-known, some of the strange ideas, plots, motifs, and structures that informed the thinking of Nixon and all the president’s men are less so. Professor Puckett‘s lecture is titled “Now More Than Ever: Barely Narrative in Nixonland.” This lecture will offer an analysis of some of the myths and peculiar narrative expectations that characterized Nixon’s time in office and the events that led to the Watergate scandal. The annual Gayley Lecture is delivered by a distinguished member of the faculty chosen by their colleagues. Chair in English, will deliver this year’s Charles Mills Gayley Lecture on April 6th at 8pm in 315 Wheeler Hall. Professor Kent Puckett, the Ida May and William J.