Rating: 
Summary: A simplistic and narrow look at Nixon's image and legacy
Review: David Greenberg's 'Nixon's Shadow' is an interesting and easy read but hardly complete. He is quick to label those who applaud aspects of the Nixon presidency `loyalists' and dismisses most of their interpretations as being partisan, naïve, or worse, comparing them to holocaust deniers. Furthermore, the author himself is in denial of FDR's, Truman's, Eisenhower's, Kennedy's, and LBJ's abuses of power. All of which made up the institution known as the imperial presidency that supposedly came crashing down after Watergate. Now, with that being said, Greenberg would probably contend that I believe Nixon is a victim and am a staunch Nixon loyalist...both of which are untrue. You cannot place such a diverse group of people into a labeled compartment.
Also, with labels already being applied, Greenberg forgot to attach one to the biggest compartments of them all: the Nixon Haters. He briefly includes Dr. Stanley Kutler's obsessive quest to eliminate any positive aspects or interpretations of the Nixon Presidency. The best example was when scholars were discussing Nixon's domestic successes at Hofstra and Kutler's paranoia was revealed. He started making outrageous claims such as it was a Nixon plot, that the scholars had been deceived by aides like Ehrlichman (who actually had turned against Nixon at this point), and that the scholars were doing Nixon's work for him. Although academia will deny it, there are Nixon Haters who have lost all touch with objectivity.
Finally, Greenberg's admiration for Bob Woodward, which he tries to conceal, jumps out at the reader throughout the entire work. Since he worked for Woodward on another book, it is apparent that the controversial reporter, whose book 'The Final Days' has been discredited by most historians, influenced Greenberg's judgement. In fact, Greenberg thanks Woodward for his advice and assistance on Nixon's Shadow. The best historical works on Nixon will not be written until baby boomers who have a stake in the outcome, such as Bob Woodward, have passed on.
Rating: 
Summary: Wishy Washy
Review: Did you know that Richard Nixon was a controversial figure? And that there are a large range of opinions about them? And that these views often reflect the biases of the people who hold them? You didn't? Well then "Nixon's Shadow," is just the book for you. Historian David Greenberg, writer for such journals as Slate and The Washington Monthly looks at Nixon's image starting with his own conservative populist image. Then he looks at the images presented by his liberal critics, New Left Radicals, Washington journalists, his supporters, psychoanalysts, the foreign policy establishment and those historians who present him as the last liberal president. The result is somewhat repetitive: each of the images has something useful to say but it also has its flaws and doesn't show the whole picture. The New Left Radicals and the Nixon loyalists probably come off the least well, while Greenberg is, somewhat surprisingly, unconvinced about the glories of Nixon's foreign policy. On the whole Greenberg's work shows the qualities that make neo-liberal journals the success they are today. There are interesting anecdotes and the occasional intelligent point, but there is also a willingness to agree with a conservative consensus and a refusal to show too much enthusiasm or indignation about anything.So it is interesting to read that yes, most liberals supported Nixon on the Alger Hiss case and no, journalists were not out to get Nixon, (they even covered his mawkish, self-pitying resignation speech with undeserved respect). It is amusing to find that Karl Rove started his career as a college student opposing impeachment, or to have Theodore White's relationship with Nixon compared to the Taylor-Burton marriage or to hear the Nixon Presidential Library falsely claim that Woodward and Bernstein bribed sources. But considering how strange, not to mention bizarre, Nixon's life was this is a surprisingly bland book. Consider Nixon and the psychiatrists. On the one hand Greenberg is, reasonably enough, sceptical about psychoanalysts who tried to explicate his personality without actually having met him. On the other hand there is the clear evidence, as expressed by Nixon's lawyer, his son-in-law and his Secretary of State, that Nixon was unstable in the last days of his presidency. But on the other other hand isn't much of this discussion irresponsible speculation? And so Greenberg runs all this together without making it clear what the state of Nixon's mental health actually was. And this inconclusiveness runs through the book. Then there are Greenberg's own neo-liberal prejudices. He criticizes both New Leftists and Nixon Loyalists for "conspiracy theories." But Watergate was a criminal conspiracy, so criticizing other versions of it as conspiracy mongering rather dramatically misses the point. Moreover Greenberg's own labelling serves as a substitute for definitive refutation. At one point Greenberg criticizes a psychiatrist who criticized Nixon's commutation of William Calley, the lieutenant responsible for the My Lai massacre. Rather blandly Greenberg comments that it was not unreasonable for Nixon to see Calley as a scapegoat, since Calley's superiors evaded judgement. But if Nixon was interested in seeing justice done he could very easily, as Commander in Chief of the army, make sure that the responsible parties were punished. But of course he had no such interest and indeed showed more outrage at the journalists who discovered the truth. Greenberg also gives some credit to the idea of Nixon as liberal. Yet he does not point out that after his presidency Nixon did nothing to support his "liberal legacy" on healthcare, race, the arts and the environment. Naturally, as a neo-liberal, Greenberg must criticize his liberal predecessors. He criticizes them for elitism, as if their distaste for Nixon was just concealed snobbery. To do this he must conflate the Democratic Party, the minority of liberal journalists and the many ex-Marxist intellectuals. Only the last group could be described, not entirely fairly, as elitist. A more perceptive author would point out that one reason why "populism" seemed to migrate to the right after the Second World War was because anti-communist liberal intellectuals so despised the Popular Front they reacted against any populist tone. A more perceptive author would point out that anti-communist demagoguery sought to discredit any populism except its own, and a more perceptive author would note that William Buckley, Russell Kirk and Leo Strauss had more than their share of elitism as well. Much of the book is dominated by received opinion. It is striking that Greenberg dismisses Seymour Hersh as a journalist, doesn't even mention William Shawcross, but is most convinced that Nixon's foreign policy was flawed because in 1998 foreign policy mandarin William Bundy wrote a book saying so. It is striking he includes only one cartoon each from Feiffer, Herblock and Conrad (and no Oliphant). On the one hand the book is muted, with details about Nixon's bigotry, his sophomoric understand of culture, his drunkenness and his vanity generally played down. On the other hand the variety of images encourages a false complexity around him. So it is important to remember the vital truth. Nixon was a crook. He did not have friends, only cronies and sycophants. He confused nobility with pomposity and courage with bullying. He was a vain, envious, self-pitying, intellectually lazy man who lusted for power without any pressing desire to do anything with it. What he did in and about Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Greece, Chile and much of the rest of the world was not only cruel, not only contemptible, but actually evil. Greenberg's book is an interesting tour of a house of mirrors, but there is no reason why we should let ourselves get lost in it because Greenberg has confused that with intellectual nuance.
Rating: 
Summary: Ambitious And Spectacular
Review: Fans of Greenberg's Slate columns know he has a gift for making history relevant and fun. In Nixon's Shadow, he focuses those gifts on one of 20th Century America's most compelling figures, Richard Nixon. The premise is ambitious: each chapter takes a different image of Nixon as a viewpoint into a different period of his life. In lesser hands, this approach could have produced a dry or pedantic effort. Instead, Nixon's Shadow crackles with life, and is that rarest of things: a work of scholarly non-fiction that is truly a page turner. Nixon's Shadow can be enjoyed on so many levels. It is not a true biography of Nixon, but fans of biographies will find plenty to like here. In essence, it is a dozen biographies -- or, even better, the best parts of a dozen biographies. But it is also a history of a tumultuous period of American life; a handbook on the political tools that still are still used to shape our democracy; an analysis of the intellectual trends in modern historical scholarship; and ultimately a tribute to the power of images to shape reality. Greenberg has an eye for the telling detail, and a prose style that is lively, witty but unobtrusive. His story-telling advances but never interferes with the story. In Nixon's Shadow, those gifts are brought to bear on one of the 20th Century's most interesting figures and the result is simply spectacular.
Rating: 
Summary: Whatta A Broadsiding
Review: First and foremost for anyone to examine this book as a Hitler-esk feed bag is as about as ridiculous as it gets.If not for the open sides of the Nixon mind we may be all speaking Chinese right now.What I got from this book is not only a replay of past pity, but also a new introduction into the narrowness of mind of all new generations. The man not only had the best interest in mind for the REAL American he also displayed a courage for those who followed. Shame on the media, the sapps they were, and always will be, shame on the colony of past begotten ilk. The measurements of a President whose only fault lied in the trenches of an uncompromising war. Whether he turned left or right made not a difference. Can history blame Richard Nixon for being, perhaps, a "crook"? Sure they may. But I refuse and defy anyone who would subject him to be UNAMERICAN. A man who goes to bat for this country should be outlined in all his glory. This book fails to find the dimension of his mind. In that frame of mind, I myself must dismiss this fish-wrap as a grandstanding of left warriors. Or I can otherwise move the masterpiece of our 37th Presidents' psyche.
Rating:
Summary: Tricky Dick unveiled?
Review: Greenberg is a good chronicler of events and few occasions in Nixon's life, however incidental, is missed here. The book is long on details relating to the professional side of Nixon, but I was disappointed that there was a lack of personal anecdote within the covers of the book. Of course RN was an inscrutable, moody, paranoid and ultimately unknowable man, but I would have liked more material on Pat Nixon, as well as Tricia and Julie. Greenberg quotes copiously of Nixon's own self-serving memoirs but doesn't include much primary source material on Nixon as a human being. The strong points are the chapters on Watergate and the gradual demise and destruction of RN as President. The ancillary characters of Watergate all get their just due: Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean are described in sometimes sympathetic but occasionally, brutal detail. Reeves shows masterfully that Nixon dissembled and lied to the bitter end, not to the American people, but most disturbingly, to himself. It's well-written and full of detail, just don't expect much on Nixon the man. Otherwise, an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Rating: 
Summary: Complexity means we much search some more
Review: Greenberg's work is the first I have read that expores the relationship between image and history in an interesting and inviting manner. I think one of the reasons that Nixon invites so much controversy was that he was a complex and contradictory man. He just does not seem to fit. Watergate destroyed him, but you have conservatives railing against him and liberals saying he did good work and vice versa. Greenberg attempts an overview of all these competing images and it is surprising how often the image being projected says more about the writer than Nixon himself. A very interesting book that deserve patient study.
Rating:
Summary: Another Elitist "Does" Nixon
Review: Here we go again.... It's become a "right of passage"
in the leftist community: if you want to be invited
to the best wine and sleeze... I mean cheese parties,
write a book smearing Nixon. Richard Nixon was
a complex human being, with both good and bad
sides to him, just like you and me. He had an
indelable impact on the development of the nation,
in both positive and negative ways. He is far too
much damned for his flaws, and far too little praised
for his successes. This book is just another stale
hatchet job, written by a hack who will be forgotten
as quickly as yesterday's toast; just another necrophiliac
having his way with a dead man. It's easier to
regurgitate leftist party hate speech than to actually
research the man's life and be honest about it.
Don't waste your money on this drek; it isn't
even good for toilet paper.
Rating:
Summary: Pulitzer Prize Historian: It's "The Best Analysis of Nixon"
Review: I was intrigued about this book when I heard it praised in a lecture by Walter Macdougall, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian. He published his lecture and what he said was, "What image will posterity nurture of Nixon? The best analysis is David Greenberg's Nixon's Shadow, published last year. Greenberg describes five Richard Nixons that beguile and perplex the American people."
But after reading it, I agree. Greenberg is younger than other historians who have written about Nixon and so he is, arguably, more objective. This book gives each point of view its due - those who hate Nixon, those who think he's an elder statesman, those who think he is a nutcase. It is as much a book about American political and social life and all of its strife and controversy in the years 1946-1974 (and after) as it is about Nixon himself. It doesn't just praise or bash Nixon - it explains WHY people praised or bashed Nixon.
Greenberg has really invented a new genre of history here. You might call it Rashomon Plus. He shows you Nixon from different perspective but then goes on to unpack these different images of Nixon and explain why they have all taken root in our political mindset.
A couple of the other posts apparently don't like Greenberg because he is liberal. That may be true, but this is not a liberal attack on Nixon, in fact he is more critical in many places of Nixon's critics than he is of Nixon. The "liberals" who came up with Tricky Dick are faulted for sneering at the middle class. And the radical left that attacked Nixon on Vietnam are faulted for being in the grip of conspiracy theories at times. The book gives Nixon's supporters more than their due. (In fact Walter Macdougall is a Conservative.) This is a highly orginal work of history.
Rating:
Summary: New Light on an Familiar Subject
Review: Richard Nixon was such a major figure for so long a time and has been so extensively analyzed it is hard to believe anything new could be said about him. David Greenberg has done the seemingly impossible. Rather than just the same parade of horribles or accolades, Greenberg's well researched book offers fresh insights on a familiar topic--one of the key goals of good historians. As a writer Greenberg also achieves the illusive goal of being both scholarly and readable. The book gives us insight into the past while he demonstrates Nixon's continuing relevance to our political culture. Historians help us recover, restore and understand who we have been and who we are. In so doing they perform an essential public service. We should all celebrate when a thoughtful historian emerges and thank goodness this is such an occasion!
Rating:
Summary: New Light on an Familiar Subject
Review: Richard Nixon was such a major figure for so long a time and has been so extensively analyzed it is hard to believe anything new could be said about him. David Greenberg has done the seemingly impossible. Rather than just the same parade of horribles or accolades, Greenberg's well researched book offers fresh insights on a familiar topic--one of the key goals of good historians. As a writer Greenberg also achieves the illusive goal of being both scholarly and readable. The book gives us insight into the past while he demonstrates Nixon's continuing relevance to our political culture. Historians help us recover, restore and understand who we have been and who we are. In so doing they perform an essential public service. We should all celebrate when a thoughtful historian emerges and thank goodness this is such an occasion!
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