Exhaustively detailed, expansive in scope, Rick Perlstein uses Nixonland to dig deep on what the 60s were, like, all about, man (i.e. a widening cultural split with increased polarization accelerated by mutual distrust and spiraling violence... wait, what did you think they were about?) and on how Nixon, that fresh-faced impish prankster, found the fault lines, jammed a wedge in, and pried the nation apart to claw his way to the top.
It's surprisingly balanced, phenomenally precise, and makes you want to watch every scrap of documentary footage about the Chicago Seven you can lay hands on.
It is also, not coincidentally, staggeringly overloaded with parallels to today (looking at the stumbling, increasingly ugly face of a desperate conservative minority, at the persistent use of mischaracterization and strawmen to reframe debates that barely exist to begin with, etc.). Perlstein ends the book saying we're still living in Nixonland, but within the first thirty pages you can't help but feel like this all sounds very familiar...
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