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🦋 Nixonland themes

So far (as I begin reading part 2, about the election of '68), Nixonland seems to divide roughly into:

• History of the struggle for racial equality, and how Nixon and his conspirators used the unrest to build their party.
• History of the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement, and how Nixon used the war as a wedge against Johnson.
• History of and speculation about the internal workings of Nixon's various campaigns and about Nixon's personal take on his opponents.

I'm pretty familiar with the Vietnam stuff and am skimming it a bit. I have (as noted below) only a passing familiarity with the racial unrest stuff and am finding that the most interesting part of the book so far. I didn't know much at all about the internal workings of Nixon's campaigns, but I'm having pretty mixed reactions to Perlstein's speculation -- some of it seems facile, some obviously true (and unnecessary), occasionally it is insightful and useful.

posted morning of Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
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