The Invisible Bridge

I read a good review of this book in The Economist, and wanting to see what all the fuss was about, I downloaded all three of his books to my Kindle and read them straight though in about two weeks. They are all excellent. Mr. Perlstein is a great storyteller and has an informal way of writing that makes him a joy to read and turns what could be a fairly dry subject into a fascinating historical narritive. I almost literally could not put these books down.

But having said that, I have to qualify my praise a bit. First, there is a lot of detail here, sometimes more than I could stand. Perhaps I am not enough of a political junky, but I in all three books I found myself occasionally skimming over multiple pages without any loss of context or flow.

Second, I think at times Mr. Perlstein reaches a bit in making his case, as for example when he speculates that The Exorcist was popular because it touched a subconsious worry in people that the children of the day where being possesed by the strange new culture of the 60’s and 70’s. Well, ok, but I went to see The Exorcist when it came out, and I wasn’t real worried about young people. In fact, I was one of the young people, blissfully wallowing in all that new culture. It is a fun argument to consider, but one of the worst things you can do when you are trying to make an case is to stretch, and this is a stretch.

Third, and most troubling, in the third book I ran into a couple of small but glaring errors. In one place he quotes a Doonesbury cartoon in which a character translates a poem into “mellowspeak” as “Oh wow, look at the moon.” Mr. Perlstein quotes several lines from a poem by Wordsworth that he says appeared in the strip and were the subject of the joke. I happen to know that particular strip; it is one of my all time favorites. The poetry in the actual strip came from William Blake, not Wordsworth, and is entirely different from the lines Mr. Perlstein quoted. In fact, on a moment’s reflection he would have realized that the lines he said were used are far too long to appear in a four frame comic strip, and you have to wonder how on earth he could have made this mistake. It is almost as if he just heard the about the strip’s premise and punchline and just made up the rest without taking 30 seconds to do a Google search.

In another place he referenced a New York Times article profiling a women he called Betsy Griffin who came to the 1976 Republican convention to support the ERA. He notes that the Times failed to note that Ms. Griffin was the headmistress of a prestigeous girls’ school. As chance would have it, I know the lady in question. She has been a good friend of ours for over 50 years. Her name is Griffith, not Griffin, and the reason the Times failed to mention her headmistress position is that she did not take that job until 1988.

Are these big serious mistakes? Obviously not. Are they stupid sloppy mistakes? I would have to say yes, and at least for me it calls into question how many those fascinating details he has in his books are 100% reliable. It also seems that when you are going to write a book that dings politicians for being fast and loose with details, you might want to make sure you are not guilty of the same thing.

So the bottom line is that these are excellent books that might have been improved with some pruning, a bit more rigor, and a little more fact checking.

Mr. Perlstein’s third volume covers from Watergate and up to the end of the 1976 GOP convention. The author’s two previous volumes, ‘Before The Storm’ and ‘Nixonland’, are excellent large works that would help the reader understand in broader perspective the evolution of the Republican Party in post-World War II America, but are not necessary if you are only interested in the 1973 through 1976 period. There is a lot of interesting material stuffed into the 800-page book. Mr. Perlstein not only focuses on the political machinations. He also paints a picture of the cultural mores from Vietnam through to the rise of the New Right represented in Ronald Reagan.

The author does a very good job of showing how events have ripple effects that travel through decades. The rise of the conservatism of Barry Goldwater bubbled up during the late-1950s/early-60s but was only embraced by a large segment of the population because of Vietnam, Watergate, and the unsettling cultural disruptions taking place. Mr. Perlstein shows all the politicians in their superficial hypocritical efforts to become the standard bearer for their respective parties. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and a plethora of other politicians are put under the microscope. It ain’t pretty, folks. Some of the other events covered are the abandonment of Vietnam; how President Nixon cynically developed and used the POW/MIA issue; the OPEC embargo; two assassination attempts on President Ford; the Boston forced-busing brouhaha; Roe v. Wade; the ascension of the Religious Right and their fight over school textbooks; the CIA’s unethical and illegal tactics; domestic terrorism; and the close race between Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford at the 1976 GOP convention.

It’s all great stuff and Mr. Perlstein writes in a way that there’s never a dull moment in the big bugger. It gave me a much better understanding of how the Great Communicator rose to prominence. Hopefully, the author is working on a fourth installment. ‘The Invisible Bridge’ could be used as a college textbook but it has more pizzazz than the typical academic options.

Invisible Bridge is the third volume of Pearlstein’s comprehensive study of the rise of the most “conservative” forces which took control of the Republican Party in the second half of the 20rth Century and which still dominates that internal policy and struggles of that Party. In telling his tale, Pearlstein covers the ground of Presidential politics from a prospective rarely found in the narrative and general historyies of the era as most academic historians focus on the Democratic Party and its Presidents – Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton. Pearlstein starts literally at mid – century with the nomination process of Eisenhower and the defeat of Taft, and the later reaction of a faction of the GOP which in 1964 nominates Goldwater. This is the ground covered in volume 1. Volume 2 is the election of Nixon. Invisible Bridge finds Nixon in trouble with Watergate, and upon his resignation the Presidency of Gerald Ford. Pearlstein’s story, however, is with the movement during that period to deny Ford the nomination in 1976, and replace him with Ronald Reagan as the GOP’s standard bearer. They fail. I assume that he will have a volume 4 to carry forward his story.

In the meantime the “read” is terrific and full of details and now did they do its that are hard to find in a single study.

I found the three volumes, and Invisible Bridge, page turners….and I lived through the period…

The third in historian Rick Perlstein’s series of books examining the cranks, racists, and grifters who’ve helped shape the modern day Republican Party.

When compared with the first two in the series (Before the Storm, and Nixonland), what is striking is the change in tone adopted by the author.
While clearly no fan of Goldwater and Nixon, the anti-heroes of books 1 & 2, Pearlstein doesn’t display the same level of antipathy towards them that he shows Ronald Reagan, the chief character in this book.

Is Reagan deserving of his acerbic wit?
Well, that depends on what you think of the bumbling liar whose idiotic economic ideas harmed the world in the 1980s.

If you enjoy character assassinations, obscure pop culture references, and tremendous writing, this is the book for you.

this is absolutely fascinating. highly recommended

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