Product Description

"Nixon's the One!" proclaimed his campaign paraphernalia. "Tricky Dick!" retorted his detractors. From presidential savior for conservative America to bête noire for the political Left, the Richard Nixon persona has worn many masks and labels. In fiction and poetry and pop songs, in television and film, no other national political figure has so thoroughly saturated our public consciousness with so many contrasting images.

Focusing on the process of Nixon's continuous reinvention, Daniel Frick reveals a figure who continues to expose key fault lines in the nation's self-definition. Drawing on references ranging from All in the Family to Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, he shows how Nixon has become one of America's most durable and multifaceted icons in the ongoing and fierce debates over the import and meaning of the last sixty years of national life.

Examining Nixon's autobiographies and political memorabilia, Frick offers far-reaching perceptions not only of the man but of Nixon's version of himself--contrasted with those who would interpret him differently. He cites reinventions of Nixon from the late 1980s, particularly the museum at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, to demonstrate the resilience of certain national mythic narratives in the face of liberal critiques. And he recounts how celebrants at Nixon's state funeral, at which Bob Dole's eulogy depicted a God-fearing American hero, attempted to bury the sources of our divisions over him, rendering in some minds the judgment of "redeemed statesman" to erase his status as "disgraced president."

With dozens of illustrations--Nixon posing with Elvis (the National Archives' most requested photo), Nixonian cultural artifacts, classic editorial cartoons--no other book collects in one place such varied images of Nixon from so many diverse media. These reinforce Frick's probing analysis to help us understand why we disagree about Nixon--and why it matters how we resolve our disagreements.

Whether your image of Nixon is shaped by his autobiography Six Crises, Oliver Stone's surprisingly sympathetic film Nixon, John Adams's landmark opera Nixon in China, or by the saga of Watergate, Reinventing Richard Nixon expands on all perspectives. It shows how, through these contradictory mythic stories, we continue to reinvent, much like Nixon himself, our own sense of national identity.

This book is part of the CultureAmerica series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #341413 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 331 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this wide-ranging, reference-heavy volume, first-time author Frick examines the many public faces of Richard Nixon, and how they reflect countrywide changes in mood and politics. Frick has a masterful reach across different media, from political cartoons (Herb Block's 1954 panel portraying Nixon emerging from the sewer) to movies and literature to campaign propaganda, biographies and autobiographies, to supporters and detractors in the government and news media. Frick is able time and again to nail the tone of the nation in a few well-chosen quotes; when the president left office in shame in 1974, Vermont newspaperman Franklin B. Smith speaks for the forgotten Nixon nation: "The heart of America stopped beating this week." Taking readers from the early days of Nixon's national career to his eulogy, at which he was (tellingly) lionized by biographer Stephen E. Ambrose as a "beloved elder statesman," Frick sets an enormous task for himself, trying to tie down all aspects of this "representative American." Casual readers could find it all too much; readers with an avid interest in popular and historical political science, however, will find this an absorbing, expertly researched look at the many roles a single controversial figure can play in American life. Illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Fourteen years after Nixon's death, the debate still rages about his place in American history as a man of destiny, corrupt president, or elder statesman, writes Frick (director, Creative Writing Ctr., Franklin and Marshall Coll.). The author interprets Nixon through national myths that are embedded in American culture and provide the battleground for today's culture wars. This thought-provoking and perceptive account, like David Greenberg's Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image, offers numerous historical and cultural anecdotes that bolster the authors' similar conclusion that the second half of the 20th century was like an Age of Nixon. Greenberg primarily investigates how Nixon was viewed by different political constituencies, while Frick explores how Nixon has been portrayed in books, music, plays, and political cartoons and how he spins himself in his three autobiographies. He interprets Nixon through a number of myths that include rising from rags to riches and fulfilling America's messianic role of being the leader of the free world. Frick is good at showing the dark sides of these myths, and his excellent appraisal reveals as much about the former president's supporters and haters as it does about Nixon himself. Strongly recommended for large public and all academic popular-culture collections.—Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Senator Bob Dole argued that the last half of the twentieth century was 'the age of Nixon' and Dan Frick shows us why. The Nixon limned here is a mutable public figure constantly reinterpreted by his enemies and his admirers. They all find him an irresistible figure for thinking about who we are, who we want to be, and what we're willing to do to get there. It is a brilliant and scary read." -- David Farber

Customer Reviews

A Nixon for many readers
This is a fine book--smart, balanced, well informed, absorbing. And because it's so nicely written and deals so thoughtfully and well with Richard Nixon, man and myth, it's also a book that deserves a wide audience. No matter how you regard Nixon, you'll find reason here to reexamine those feelings even as you're reminded of how you came to them in the first place.
Much to his credit, Daniel Frick is able to take Nixon seriously without becoming stodgy, somber, peevish, or pedantic. You'll learn a lot from his smart and thorough narration, but it won't be because Frick wags his finger at you or, for that matter, at the man who's the focus of his scrutiny. You are guided instead through a number of ways of looking at and thinking about Nixon that arise out of his place in the popular imagination over time. We have mythologized Nixon; Frick makes us aware of how, how variously, and even, largely, why.
So Frick's reader comes to know a great deal not just about our thirty-seventh president, but about the relentlessly American culture that both shaped and undid him, a culture that he himself tapped deeply into as he began the reinventions of Richard Nixon that we perpetuate and that Frick deftly chronicles. We may never fully understand Nixon, but a book like this makes us aware of how much we can discover about ourselves in the process or trying.

A Nixon 'must-read'
The impact left by Richard Nixon on the collective American consciousness is fascinatingly recounted in this well-written and erudite cultural history. Whereas Rick Perlstine's excellent `Nixonland' explores Nixon's keen political understanding of his own place in the tumultuous electorate of the 60's and 70's, Frick presents Nixon as a self-aware chameleon who refashioned and refit himself to reflect specific segments of society while deflecting and enraging others. Nixon's objectification, due partly to his own design and partly to an undeniable American fascination with our most Lazarus-like of politicians, turned him into a living metaphor for all sides of the political and cultural spectrum. As Frick ably demonstrates, Richard Nixon as a symbol had (and has) the ability to represent all things to all people.