Rick Perlstein, who has devoted four sweeping books to chronicling the rise of the right in American politics. The first, Before The Storm, covers Barry Goldwater, the insurgent Republican primary candidate who galvanized a generation of movement conservatives. The second, Nixonland, covers the president who looked like he would be the end of the Republican Party. And the newest, The Invisible Bridge, chronicles how America went, in six short years, from the impeachment of Nixon to the election of one of the only politicians who had supported him all the way through Watergate – Ronald Reagan. His latest book is Reaganland—the fourth and final volume of Perlstein’s enthralling history of American political conservatism’s resurgence in the mid-to-late-twentieth century.
In this episode Brian Edwards-Tiekert interview Rick Perlstein about The Invisible Bridge,The Fall of Nixon and The Rise of Reagan.