The Invisible Bridge, newly published in paperback, begins where Nixonland left off, guiding the reader through the upheavals of the mid-seventies. His multigenerational chronicle of the modern right began with Before The Storm, which revisited Barry Goldwater’s insurrectionary 1964 presidential campaign and continued with Nixonland, an absorbing account of Richard Nixon’s political career and the seething social tensions he knew intimately, manipulated masterfully, and that set the stage for Nixon’s tenacious rise and cataclysmic fall. In addition to his narrative gifts, Perlstein has the authority of expertise. Like any well-told story, the reader wants to keep turning pages whether or not they already know how it ends.
Every page of his three massively detailed histories combines novelistic sweep, insightful anecdotes, colorful period detail, and all-too-true tales of backstage political chicanery with a surprisingly brisk readability. For political junkies, it’s easy to be engrossed in Perelstein’s witty, informative, and unpretentious storytelling. Rick Perlstein is one of the few popular historians writing today whose work deserves to be called epic. As our current group of GOP presidential contenders make their ritual obeisance to the sacred memory of the Ronald Reagan, it’s useful to be reminded that the record shows the revered All-American icon to be more simulacrum than savior.
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