First published 2017
Young Navy lieutenant Nick Nixon comes home from the Pacific with dreams of building a better world through politics. He sets his sights on Congress in 1946, an idealistic candidate ready to serve his country. But the brutal realities of campaigning quickly strip away his finer qualities. Nixon discovers that ruthlessness wins elections, and he embraces it without apology. His rise proves meteoric. Within four years he becomes a U.S. senator. Six years after that first campaign, he serves as vice president. Eventually Nixon reaches the presidency, surrounding himself with bright advisors who craft progressive reforms on health care, poverty, and civil rights. Yet Nixon cares little for domestic policy. He wants to reshape the world stage, and his historic opening to China cracks the Cold War. But Nixon leaves another legacy entirely. He divides America against itself, teaching citizens to nurse grievances and view each other as enemies. The Watergate scandal finally destroys him, forcing the only presidential resignation in American history.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, political-science, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: rise-and-fall, unreliable-narrator
Setting: America, China, Pacific
Period: 1946, 1950s, 1970s
752 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday