cover image Richard Nixon and His America

Richard Nixon and His America

Herbert S. Parmet. Little Brown and Company, $24.95 (755pp) ISBN 978-0-316-69232-8

In this biography by the author of JFK , ``tricky Dick'' 's errors figure little in the career of a steadfast public servant dedicated to ``practical liberalism.'' This friendly but unfawning reassessment argues persuasively that the former president deserves more recognition for his party leadership and domestic and foreign policy than for the psychological peculiarities that have fascinated previous biographers. Nixon consented to ``sit'' for this portrait, granting interviews, making private papers available and easing access to family, friends and associates. The result is an opinionated but three-dimensional look at a pragmatic leader with formidable powers of survival--less a political partisan, contends the author, than a centrist intent on steering the Republican party along a middle course. Parmet's purview includes the forces that shaped the political culture in what he calls the Age of Nixon. Photos. (Jan.)