Nixon Agonistes

The Crisis of the Self-Made Man

By: Garry Wills

Narrated by: Adam Barr

In this acclaimed biography that earned him a spot on Nixon's infamous "enemies list," Garry Wills takes a thoughtful, in-depth, and often "very amusing" look at the thirty-seventh US president, and draws some surprising conclusions about a man whose name has become synonymous with scandal and the abuse of power (Kirkus Reviews).

Arguing that Nixon was a reflection of the country that elected him, Wills examines not only the psychology of the man himself and his relationships with others—from his wife, Pat, to his vice-president, Spiro Agnew—but also the state of the nation at the time, mired in the Vietnam War and experiencing a cultural rift that pitted the young against the old. Putting his findings into moral, economic, intellectual, and political contexts, he ultimately "paints a broad and provocative landscape of the nation's—and Nixon's—travails" (The New York Times).

Simultaneously compassionate and critical, and raising interesting perspectives on the shifting definitions of terms like "conservative" and "liberal" over recent decades, Nixon Agonistes is a brilliant and indispensable book from one of America's most acclaimed historians.

©1969, 1970, 2002 Garry Wills (P)2023 Tantor

Writing as Smooth as drinking milk on a sunny afternoon

After listening the the cheeky named podcast of Know Your Enemy, I wondered over and gave this book a chance and thrilled that I did. Wonderfully written and performed. Well worth it as the book is still relevant to understanding contemporary conservatives and liberalism as a political philosophy.

No one like Wills writing on political discourse today, and we are poorer for it.

One of the most erudite and prescient books on politics I have ever (heard) read. And more relevant than ever.

I learned a lot, but…

I wasn’t really ready for the style of this book, which reflects quite a bit about the author, as well as about Nixon. I also did not enjoy this narrator, though, perhaps that was simply a style thing.

Still relevant

This is a very dense survey of philosophical and political thoughts and theories wrapped in an arguably superficial psychology of Nixon. It is clearly relevant today, when Magats are echoing fascist taunts from the past and fearful of feminism, resentful of experts. (The right-center-left ‘thing’ remains squishy!)

Important, Insightful, and Prescient

This is more than a “life and times” biography of Richard Nixon. Published in 1970, in the middle of Nixon’s first term, Wills, one of the most accomplished American historical analysts of our time, presents a well-crafted, penetrating examination of the multi-sphered ideology of American Liberalism, its essential tenets and contradictions, its dreams, its limitations, its nightmares, and its ultimate exhaustion, all of which are contained within the character and persona of Richard Nixon. To Wills, the rise of Nixon was the inevitable result of an American ideology that refuses to reckon honestly with itself and its condition. This is an important, under-appreciated work of American historical analysis, harkening the coming deep decline of an America spiraling within itself with no solution within and no way out.