Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man

In Preface, saw a couple of parenthesis and the word "why" & "How", spine has been reinforced, else content appears as unblemished with with fine dark blue, cloth covered boards, in DJ & Vinyl Cover displaying minimal surface/edge wear, as shown.

A "stunning" analysis of the troubled Republican president by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg. In this acclaimed biography that earned him a spot on Nixon's infamous "enemies list," Garry Wills takes a thoughtful, in-depth, and often "very amusing" look at the thirty-seventh US president, and draws some surprising conclusions about a man whose name has become synonymous with scandal and the abuse of power. Arguing that Nixon was a reflection of the country that elected him, Wills examines not only the psychology of the man himself and his relationships with others—from his wife, Pat, to his vice-president, Spiro Agnew—but also the state of the nation at the time, mired in the Vietnam War and experiencing a cultural rift that pitted the young against the old. Putting his findings into moral, economic, intellectual, and political contexts, he ultimately "paints a broad and provocative landscape of the nation's—and Nixon's—travails". Simultaneously compassionate and critical, and raising interesting perspectives on the shifting definitions of terms like "conservative" and "liberal" over recent decades, Nixon Agonistes is a brilliant and indispensable book from one of America's most acclaimed historians.

Kirkus Review: Wills, an Esquire writer, draws us into this multifaceted study with legwork: reportage of Nixon's 1968 Wisconsin campaign, investigations of Whittier family and landmarks, the Republican and Democratic conventions. His style combines Kemptonian tough-sensibility with an extensive acquaintance with Mencken and decorative polysyllables; he can be very amusing, as in his comparisons of American liberals to Dostoevsky's Verkhovensky and David Eisenhower to Howdy Doody. The book alternates selective biography with state-of-the-republic impressions and political flashbacks. Wills sketches advisers and allies; a sharp fresh review of early campaigns; Nixon's vexed relationship with Eisenhower (the latter very bright indeed); the rise of Agnew; Nixon's character--""People forget that he is Irish" . . "He has gone through most of his career knowing that he is better, brighter, more profound than he lets himself appear". . . "ither the Depression nor the New Deal had any discernible effect on him." Wills' more ambitious attempts to relate Nixon to his idol Wilson, to Calvinism, and competitive liberalism, are stimulating and/or tiresome, depending on the reader's prior exposure to such ventures. The same is true of Wills' editorials against the Vietnam war and ""participatory"" rhetoric. The "undeserving rich" theme--Nixon's support from those who find their hardwon success devalued--is well-executed but no substitute for hard analysis of Nixon's smaller-businessman-boondoggler base: Wills. provides meager ground for policy projection or explanation. In this connection a fuller Mitchell profile would have been desirable. But the backstage richness sufficiently compensates from the point of view of the large general readership this will undoubtedly command.

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