Rick Perlstein's Nixonland -Must Read of the Year?

Nixonland looks more and more like the must read book of the year. CNN gave Rick Perlstein some space on its website to feature his new book. A particular focus for Perlstein in this report was the angry divide between the generations that Nixon was able to exploit effectively as it turned out:

"The generational divide went so deep as to form a fundamental argument about what was moral and what was immoral," Perlstein says. "This was how people lived in the world -- through popular culture and through politics. The two feed off each other."

Though the era is now remembered through the rosy lenses of the baby boomers, their parents -- the heart of the "Silent Majority" -- didn't look upon the culture so fondly. Many disdained the era's pop music, the most obvious expression of youth.

Moreover, some of the highest-rated TV specials of 1969 and 1970 were Bob Hope programs, Perlstein writes, and when a movie such as 1970's "Joe" came out -- about a hardhat who loathes the hippies -- many in the audience came to cheer for the hardhat.

Movies may have been the most revealing mirror of society. The rise of the youth culture coincided with the death of the studio system. Some of what emerged were films willing to show the grit and ugliness of the cities ("the cities" being a common euphemism for civic decline). "Midnight Cowboy" and "The French Connection," the Academy Awards' best pictures of 1969 and 1971 respectively, show a weary, cold New York crumbling under its residents' feet.

There are some good slide shows with Perlstein's voice over. The one on movies and TV is quite insightful--supporting a review I recently completed on Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris that traces the key movies of the same time period that transformed Hollywood.