Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man

by Garry Wills

Overview

From one of America's most distinguished historians comes this classic analysis of Richard Nixon. By considering some of the president's opinions, Wills comes to the controversial conclusion that Nixon was actually a liberal. Both entertaining and essential, Nixon Agonistes captures a troubled leader and a struggling nation mired in a foolish Asian war, forfeiting the loyalty of its youth, puzzled by its own power, and looking to its cautious president for confidence. In the end, Nixon Agonistes reaches far beyond its assessment of the thirty-seventh president to become an incisive and provocative analysis of the American political machine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780618134328
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/14/2002
Pages:	640
Sales rank:	485,322
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

GARRY WILLS, a distinguished historian and critic, is the author of numerous books, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lincoln at Gettysburg, Saint Augustine, and the best-selling Why I Am a Catholic. A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, he has won many awards, among them two National Book Critics Circle Awards and the 1998 National Medal for the Humanities. He is a history professor emeritus at Northwestern University.

Date of Birth:

May 22, 1934

Place of Birth:

Atlanta, GA

Education:

St. Louis University, B.A., 1957; Xavier University, M.A., 1958; Yale University, Ph.D., 1961

Table of Contents

	Introduction to the Mariner Edition	xi
	Preface	xvii
I.	The Moral Market
1.	The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner	3
2.	The Center Cannot Hold	34
3.	The Politics of Resentment	55
4.	The Denigrative Method	72
5.	Checkers	91
6.	The Hero	115
7.	The Common Man	139
8.	Whittier: First Day	150
9.	Whittier: Second Day	168
II.	The Economic Market
1.	Miami, 1968	189
2.	Political Philanthropy	206
3.	Republican Camelot	219
4.	They, the People	229
5.	The Goldwater Party	246
6.	Southern Strategy	258
7.	The Succeeder	276
8.	The Non-Succeeders	294
9.	Making It	306
III.	The Intellectual Market
1.	Chicago, 1968	319
2.	Liberals	335
3.	Radicals	356
4.	The Establishment	374
5.	The War on War	388
6.	Plastic Man	403
IV.	The Political Market
1.	"Self-Determination"	419
2.	A Good Election	434
3.	The Covenant	456
4.	Universalism	471
5.	Our Country!	481
V.	The Future of Liberalism
1.	Saving the System	499
2.	Refiguring the Calculus	518
3.	"Left" and "Right" in America	539
4.	"Beyond Left and Right"	558
5.	Nixon Triumphans: The Self-Made Man	576
6.	Nixon Agonistes: The Last Liberal?	589
	Index to Proper Names	605

Editorial Reviews

"Astonishing . . . a stunning attempt to possess that past, that we may all of us escape it." — John Leonard, New York Times Book Review The New York Times Book Review —

From the Publisher