Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 by Rick Perlstein (English) Paperback

Description: Reaganland by Rick Perlstein From the bestselling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 From the bestselling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power.Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the sagas final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement. In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Fords defeat, too old to make another run. His comeback was fueled by an extraordinary confluence: fundamentalist preachers and former segregationists reinventing themselves as militant crusaders against gay rights and feminism; business executives uniting against regulation in an era of economic decline; a cadre of secretive "New Right" organizers deploying state-of-the-art technology, bending political norms to the breaking point—and Reagans own unbending optimism, his ability to convey unshakable confidence in America as the worlds "shining city on a hill." Meanwhile, a civil war broke out in the Democratic party. When President Jimmy Carter called Americans to a new ethic of austerity, Senator Ted Kennedy reacted with horror, challenging him for reelection. Carters Oval Office tenure was further imperiled by the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, near-catastrophe at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant, aviation accidents, serial killers on the loose, and endless gas lines. Backed by a reenergized conservative Republican base, Reagan ran on the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again"—and prevailed. Reaganland is the story of how that happened, tracing conservatives cutthroat strategies to gain power and explaining why they endure four decades later. Author Biography Rick Perlstein is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan; Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, a New York Times bestseller picked as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by over a dozen publications; and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, which won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history and appeared on the best books of the year lists of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. His essays and book reviews have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Village Voice, and Slate, among others. A contributing editor and board member of In These Times magazine, he lives in Chicago. Review "An absorbing political and social history of the late 1970s...The joy of this book, and the reason it remains fresh for nearly a thousand pages of text, is that personality and character constantly confound the conventional wisdom. Perlsteins broad theme is well known, partly because he has made it so through his three earlier volumes (Before the Storm, Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge) on the rise of the New Right in American politics. In the 1960s and 70s, liberals overplayed their hand and failed to see the growing disaffection of Americans who felt cut out or left behind. (Sound familiar?) But Perlstein is never deterministic, and his sharp insights into human quirks and foibles make all of his books surprising and fun...The 1980 election marks the end of this book, and, Perlstein says in his acknowledgments, the end of his four-volume saga on the rise of conservatism in America, from the early stirrings of Barry Goldwater to the dawn of the Age of Reagan. One hopes Perlstein does not stop there. Reaganland is full of portents for the current day."—Evan Thomas, The New York Times Book Review "The pointillist canvas of Reaganland is mesmerizing…Perlsteins book certainly presents the fullest picture we have of the Reagan years." —Thomas Meaney, The Nation "Perlstein masterfully connects deep currents of social change and ideology to prosaic politics, which he conveys in elegant prose studded with vivid character sketches and colorful electoral set-pieces....The result is an insightful and entertaining analysis of a watershed era in American politics."—Publishers Weekly (starred review) "If you dont think a chronicle of the rise of conservatism in American politics can be just as entertaining and illuminating as A Song of Ice and Fire, think again. Perlstein, a local historian, wraps up his acerbic, thoroughly researched, and energetic series on the conservative movement with this tome covering the four years just before Ronald Reagan began his tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."—Chicago Magazine "[M]ajestic…Perlstein sees American culture holistically, and his method is to implant you into the whole of a living tissue. Reaganland is so mammoth in scope and so scrupulously agnostic in presentation, each reader will likely find their own book in there. I walked away grateful for its larger arc." —Stephan Metcalf, The Los Angeles Times "One comes away from this book with a better understanding of how Carter was so thoroughly defeated....Perlstein casts a broad net, riffing on everything from Ted Bundy to New York Mayor Ed Koch, but that is part of the package here; by the end readers have more insight on the rising tide of conservative politics."—Library Journal "A valuable road map that charts how events from 40 years ago helped lead us to where we are now." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "At more than 1,100 pages, Reaganland is the fourth and final volume of Perlsteins massive, sweeping history of American conservatism in the postwar era...Reaganland is terrific, a work whose characteristic insight and soaring ambition make it a fitting and resonant conclusion to Perlsteins astounding achievement....Perlsteins rapid-fire style of chronological narrative is riveting, like the worlds most exciting microfilm scroll...Perlsteins epic series shows political history and cultural history cannot be disentangled." —Jack Hamilton, Slate "In Perlsteins new book, the final volume of his series charting the ascendancy of the right in America, he traces Reagans political comeback and how he reinvigorated the Republican Partys base with his pledge to Make America Great Again. Perlstein, an engaging storyteller, offers a clear guide to the intellectual and ideological debates of the time."—Joumana Khatib, The New York Times ("13 Books to Watch for in August 2020") "Its all here—the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, brother Billy, the Panama Canal Treaty, Californias Proposition 13 cutting property taxes, supply side economics, the killer rabbit, direct mail, the Ford Pinto, Ted Kennedy, Three Mile Island, malaise and a hundred other incidents and stories that defined these tumultuous years…Reaganland is essentially sociopolitical history, focusing on the movements and causes that animated public debate so virulently and the impacts of major social changes, such as womens rights, on American life…[A] meticulously researched narrative history."—John S. Gardner, The Guardian "To reduce Perlsteins works to political biographies would not be accurate. What he is writing is more of an excavation of the sediment produced by the media of the time: Especially in recent works, he uses archival documents sparingly, but reads deeply in the public record. The books are primarily political history, but they also take up cultural changes…Perlsteins works are less X-rays of the internal structures of the nation at a given time than an MRI of its nervous system, showing when different regions of the brain lit up: here, activated by fear, here by sex, here by joy, here by anger. This is what has made his books grow in size—Reaganland runs to over 1,000 pages—they resemble reading several years of news, with the benefit of hindsight. They succeed when they can make sense of the structure of peoples feelings in a time of significant social division."—Patrick Iber, The New Republic "Rick Perlstein brings his series on the rise of conservatism in the U.S. to a conclusion with Reaganland. Examining the four years before Reagan took office, this volume pinpoints what led the country to elect the first man to run with the slogan Make America Great Again, and the ruthless political tactics devised to secure his win that endure to this day."—Juliet Helmke, Observer ("5 Most Anticipated Books of August 2020") "Perlstein is a great read for both the history and the narrative."—John Warner, The Chicago Tribune "[Perlsteins] books are an epic examination of the political, societal, and cultural tides that have brought us to todays political shores."—Jeff Beer, Fast Company Review Quote "An absorbing political and social history of the late 1970s...The joy of this book, and the reason it remains fresh for nearly a thousand pages of text, is that personality and character constantly confound the conventional wisdom. Perlsteins broad theme is well known, partly because he has made it so through his three earlier volumes ( Before the Storm , Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge ) on the rise of the New Right in American politics. In the 1960s and 70s, liberals overplayed their hand and failed to see the growing disaffection of Americans who felt cut out or left behind. (Sound familiar?) But Perlstein is never deterministic, and his sharp insights into human quirks and foibles make all of his books surprising and fun...The 1980 election marks the end of this book, and, Perlstein says in his acknowledgments, the end of his four-volume saga on the rise of conservatism in America, from the early stirrings of Barry Goldwater to the dawn of the Age of Reagan. One hopes Perlstein does not stop there. Reaganland is full of portents for the current day." --Evan Thomas, The New York Times Book Review "The pointillist canvas of Reaganland is mesmerizing...Perlsteins book certainly presents the fullest picture we have of the Reagan years." --Thomas Meaney, The Nation "Perlstein masterfully connects deep currents of social change and ideology to prosaic politics, which he conveys in elegant prose studded with vivid character sketches and colorful electoral set-pieces....The result is an insightful and entertaining analysis of a watershed era in American politics." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "If you dont think a chronicle of the rise of conservatism in American politics can be just as entertaining and illuminating as A Song of Ice and Fire , think again. Perlstein, a local historian, wraps up his acerbic, thoroughly researched, and energetic series on the conservative movement with this tome covering the four years just before Ronald Reagan began his tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." -- Chicago Magazine "[M]ajestic...Perlstein sees American culture holistically, and his method is to implant you into the whole of a living tissue. Reaganland is so mammoth in scope and so scrupulously agnostic in presentation, each reader will likely find their own book in there. I walked away grateful for its larger arc." --Stephan Metcalf, The Los Angeles Times "One comes away from this book with a better understanding of how Carter was so thoroughly defeated....Perlstein casts a broad net, riffing on everything from Ted Bundy to New York Mayor Ed Koch, but that is part of the package here; by the end readers have more insight on the rising tide of conservative politics." -- Library Journal "A valuable road map that charts how events from 40 years ago helped lead us to where we are now." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "At more than 1,100 pages, Reaganland is the fourth and final volume of Perlsteins massive, sweeping history of American conservatism in the postwar era... Reaganland is terrific, a work whose characteristic insight and soaring ambition make it a fitting and resonant conclusion to Perlsteins astounding achievement....Perlsteins rapid-fire style of chronological narrative is riveting, like the worlds most exciting microfilm scroll...Perlsteins epic series shows political history and cultural history cannot be disentangled." --Jack Hamilton, Slate "In Perlsteins new book, the final volume of his series charting the ascendancy of the right in America, he traces Reagans political comeback and how he reinvigorated the Republican Partys base with his pledge to Make America Great Again. Perlstein, an engaging storyteller, offers a clear guide to the intellectual and ideological debates of the time." --Joumana Khatib, The New York Times ("13 Books to Watch for in August 2020") "Its all here--the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, brother Billy, the Panama Canal Treaty, Californias Proposition 13 cutting property taxes, supply side economics, the killer rabbit, direct mail, the Ford Pinto, Ted Kennedy, Three Mile Island, malaise and a hundred other incidents and stories that defined these tumultuous years... Reaganland is essentially sociopolitical history, focusing on the movements and causes that animated public debate so virulently and the impacts of major social changes, such as womens rights, on American life...[A] meticulously researched narrative history." --John S. Gardner, The Guardian "To reduce Perlsteins works to political biographies would not be accurate. What he is writing is more of an excavation of the sediment produced by the media of the time: Especially in recent works, he uses archival documents sparingly, but reads deeply in the public record. The books are primarily political history, but they also take up cultural changes...Perlsteins works are less X-rays of the internal structures of the nation at a given time than an MRI of its nervous system, showing when different regions of the brain lit up: here, activated by fear, here by sex, here by joy, here by anger. This is what has made his books grow in size-- Reaganland runs to over 1,000 pages--they resemble reading several years of news, with the benefit of hindsight. They succeed when they can make sense of the structure of peoples feelings in a time of significant social division." --Patrick Iber, The New Republic "Rick Perlstein brings his series on the rise of conservatism in the U.S. to a conclusion with Reaganland . Examining the four years before Reagan took office, this volume pinpoints what led the country to elect the first man to run with the slogan Make America Great Again, and the ruthless political tactics devised to secure his win that endure to this day." --Juliet Helmke, Observer ("5 Most Anticipated Books of August 2020") "Perlstein is a great read for both the history and the narrative." --John Warner, The Chicago Tribune "[Perlsteins] books are an epic examination of the political, societal, and cultural tides that have brought us to todays political shores." -- Jeff Beer, Fast Company Excerpt from Book Chapter 1: "Nibbled to Death by Ducks" CHAPTER 1 "Nibbled to Death by Ducks" RONALD REAGAN INSISTED THAT IT wasnt his fault. In July of 1976, Jimmy Carter emerged from the Democratic National Convention ahead in the polls against President Gerald Ford by a record thirty-three percentage points. By November, Ford had staged a monumental comeback. But it was not monumental enough. Jimmy Carter was elected president of the United States with 50.08 percent of the popular vote, and 55 percent of the electoral college. What had stopped Ford just shy of the prize? In newspaper columns, radio commentaries, and interviews all through the rest of 1976 and into 1977, Reagan blamed factors like the Democrat-controlled Congress, for allegedly holding back matching funds owed to Fords campaign. And All the Presidents Men , the hit Watergate movie from the spring, which Warner Bros. had rebooked into six hundred theaters two weeks before the election, for reminding voters of the incumbents unpopular act of pardoning Richard Nixon after Watergate. And even the United Auto Workers, for calling a strike that autumn against the Ford Motor Company--sabotaging the economy to boost Jimmy Carter, Reagan claimed. Ronald Reagan blamed everyone and everything, that is, except the factor many commentators said was most responsible for the tickets defeat: Ronald Reagan. He had challenged Ford for the nomination all the way through the convention, something unprecedented in the history of the Republican Party. Then, critics charged, he sat on his hands rather than seriously campaign for the ticket in the fall. If Ford had pulled in but 64,510 more votes in Texas and 7,232 more in Mississippi, he would have won the electoral college; or 137,984 more in Kentucky and West Virginia plus 35,473 from Missouri; or if he had won Ohio, where he came but 5,559 short, while adding either Louisiana, Alabama, or Mississippi, which Ford lost by less than two points--all of these states where Reagan had droves of passionate fans. But according to one top Republican operative, "the only effective campaign work done by Reagan was for Carter, whose ads featured Reagans primary attacks against Ford." "Former Gov. Ronald Reagan has succeeded in running out the election campaign without being drawn into full, direct support for President Ford," the New York Times had concluded--in order, the cognoscenti whispered, to preserve his own chances for 1980 should Gerald Ford lose. Reagan howled his defense: "No defeated candidate for the nomination has ever campaigned that hard for the nominee," but there had been "a curtain of silence around my activities." This was not true. They were covered widely--under headlines like "Reagan Shuns Role in Fords Campaign." Now they said his political career was over. The Boston Globe s Washington columnist joked that Richard Nixon was a more likely presidential prospect in 1980. About Reagan, the Times said, "At 65, he is considered by some as too old to make another run for the presidency." Even right-wingers agreed--scouring the horizon, one columnist noted, "for a bright, tough young conservative whom Reagan might groom for the GOP nomination in 1980." The Times also said that "political professionals of both major parties" believed the GOP was "closer to extinction than ever before in its 122-year history": they controlled only twelve governorships, and, according to Fords pollster Robert Teeter, the loyalty of only 18 percent of American voters. Clearly, the Newspaper of Record concluded, "if the Republican Party is to rebuild it must entrust its future to younger men." And less conservative ones. John Rhodes, the House minority leader, was a disciple of conservative hero Barry Goldwater. His tiny caucus of 143 would face a wall of 292 Democrats when the 95th Congress convened in January. After the election, he rued that "we give the impression of not caring, the worst possible image a political party can have." The American Conservative Union, chartered in 1964 to keep the faith after Goldwaters presidential loss that year as the Republican nominee, felt so unwelcome in the party that they met in Chicago the weekend after the election to consider chartering a new one. Reagan himself entertained the idea until one of his biggest donors threatened to cut him off if he persisted--though Reagan did suggest that perhaps a name change for the Grand Old Party was in order. "You know, in the business I used to be in, we discovered that very often the title of a picture was very important as to whether people went to see it or not." Even so, he had no suggestion what that should be. THE DEMOCRATS, ON THE OTHER hand, appeared to be in clover. After Watergate, America longed for redemption. They met Jimmy Carter and fell in love. One day that summer, the advertising man hired to make Gerald Fords TV commercials turned on the radio. Jimmy Carters mother, whod joined the Peace Corps ten years earlier at the age of sixty-eight and whom an adoring nation called "Miz Lillian," dialed in to a sports talk show to gab about her favorite professional wrestlers. "I was spellbound," Malcolm MacDougall wrote. "One little phone call and 100,000 avid Boston sports fans had undoubtedly fallen in love with Jimmy Carters mother." He flipped on the TV. A Washington socialite was being interviewed by Johnny Carson. "She didnt want to talk about her new book. She wanted to talk about her trip to Plains, Georgia. In the beginning she wasnt a believer, she said. No, sir. She had been just as cynical as a lot of us liberals. But shed talked with Jimmy Carter for hours. Just sat there on the porch, the two of them, talking about life and government and religion. And now she was a believer. Jimmy Carter was real, she said.... He is going to save our country. He is going to make us all better people.?" MacDougall traveled to Bostons Logan Airport to fly to the Republican convention. At the newsstand, "Jimmy Carters face was staring at me from dozens of magazines." And from the covers of paperback books with titles like The Miracle of Jimmy Carter . He turned around: "A stack of T-shirts with peanuts on the front, and the words THE GRIN WILL WIN. This wasnt a clothing store." Even so, 70 percent of the electorate told pollsters they had no intention of voting in November at all. One of them, a rabbi, wrote a New York Times op-ed. "I was one of the millions who rejected Barry Goldwaters foreign policy, voted for Lyndon Baines Johnson, and then got Mr. Goldwaters foreign policy anyway. I, too, voted for law and order and got Richard M. Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew. And now I think of the man who promised Congress that he would not interfere with the judicial process, and then pardoned Mr. Nixon as almost his first official act." So: no more voting. "If Pericles were alive today, he might be inclined to join me." The epidemic of political apathy spread particularly thick among the young. During the insurgent 1960s, the notion of universities as a seedbed of idealism was accepted as a political truism for all time. No longer. A university provost explained that he was seeing "a new breed of student who is thinking more about jobs, money, and the future"--just not societys future. College business courses were oversubscribed. But politics? "Watergate taught them not to care," a high school civics teacher rued. A college professor gave a speech to his daughters high school class, rhapsodizing about the excitement of the Kennedy years. "A few minutes into my talk I realized we werent even on the same planet." He asked if they would protest if America began bombing Vietnam again. "Nothing. In desperation, I said: For Gods sake, what would outrage you? After a pause, a girl in a cheerleading uniform raised her hand and said tentatively, Well, Id be pretty mad if they bombed this school .?" JIMMY CARTER KICKED OFF HIS general election campaign in Warm Springs, Georgia, on the front porch of Franklin D. Roosevelts "Winter White House." Democrats traditionally opened on Labor Day in Detroits Cadillac Square. But Detroit was in the middle of a crime spree. Cadillac Square was only blocks from the Cobo Hall arena, where, the UPI reported, "gangs of black youth," taking advantage of the fact that the cash-strapped city had been forced to lay off nearly a thousand cops, had recently set upon a rock concert, robbing, beating, and raping attendees. So: Warm Springs it was. Two of Roosevelts sons were by Carters side. A seventy-three-year-old Black man, subject of a famous Life magazine picture showing him playing accordion in his Navy uniform as Roosevelts funeral train trundled by, performed the New Deal anthem "Hap Details ISBN1476793069 Author Rick Perlstein Short Title Reaganland Pages 1120 Publisher Simon & Schuster Language English Year 2021 ISBN-10 1476793069 ISBN-13 9781476793061 Format Paperback Subtitle Americas Right Turn 1976-1980 DEWEY 973.926 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Imprint Simon & Schuster NZ Release Date 2021-10-14 US Release Date 2021-10-14 UK Release Date 2021-10-14 Illustrations 2x16-pg 4-C inserts AU Release Date 2022-05-17 Publication Date 2021-10-14 Alternative 9781476793054 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:160749322;

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