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The Invisible Bridge

The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

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The Invisible Bridge

Written by: Rick Perlstein
Narrated by: David de Vries
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About this listen

From the bestselling author of Nixonland: a dazzling portrait of America on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the tumultuous political and economic times of the 1970s.

In January of 1973 Richard Nixon announced the end of the Vietnam War and prepared for a triumphant second term - until televised Watergate hearings revealed his White House as little better than a mafia den. The next president declared upon Nixon’s resignation “our long national nightmare is over” - but then congressional investigators exposed the CIA for assassinating foreign leaders. The collapse of the South Vietnamese government rendered moot the sacrifice of some 58,000 American lives. The economy was in tatters. And as Americans began thinking about their nation in a new way - as one more nation among nations, no more providential than any other - the pundits declared that from now on successful politicians would be the ones who honored this chastened new national mood.

Ronald Reagan never got the message. Which was why, when he announced his intention to challenge President Ford for the 1976 Republican nomination, those same pundits dismissed him - until, amazingly, it started to look like he might just win. He was inventing the new conservative political culture we know now, in which a vision of patriotism rooted in a sense of American limits was derailed in America’s Bicentennial year by the rise of the smiling politician from Hollywood. Against a backdrop of melodramas from the Arab oil embargo to Patty Hearst to the near-bankruptcy of America’s greatest city, The Invisible Bridge asks the question: what does it mean to believe in America? To wave a flag - or to reject the glibness of the flag wavers?

©2014 Rick Perlstein (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved
20th Century Ideologies & Doctrines Political Science Politics & Government United States Richard Nixon Vietnam War City American History First Lady
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Better than The Great Divide...in my opinion!

Fascinating from beginning to end. So good in fact, it could have even been longer. I believe Perlstein's Goldwater book is considered his masterpiece but as I have only read that one and this one, I favor The Invisible Bridge, no question. This period of American history is so chaotic and rich from a storytelling point of view. And the information Perlstein dug up from archives and his children's memoirs about Reagan is scathing! Can't wait to read the sequel to The Invisible Bridge in August about the downfall of Carter and the rise of Reagan.

And the narrator was perfect! I cant believe he maintained such an energetic reading for such a long book.

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SO SO!

Not as exciting as anticipated. it was such an elaborate narratives of Reaganism that it was very laborious and tedious to read.

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