The Invisible Bridge

The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

By: Rick Perlstein

Narrated by: David de Vries

From the bestselling author of Nixonland: a dazzling portrait of America on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the tumultuous political and economic times of the 1970s.

In January of 1973 Richard Nixon announced the end of the Vietnam War and prepared for a triumphant second term - until televised Watergate hearings revealed his White House as little better than a mafia den. The next president declared upon Nixon’s resignation “our long national nightmare is over” - but then congressional investigators exposed the CIA for assassinating foreign leaders. The collapse of the South Vietnamese government rendered moot the sacrifice of some 58,000 American lives. The economy was in tatters. And as Americans began thinking about their nation in a new way - as one more nation among nations, no more providential than any other - the pundits declared that from now on successful politicians would be the ones who honored this chastened new national mood.

Ronald Reagan never got the message. Which was why, when he announced his intention to challenge President Ford for the 1976 Republican nomination, those same pundits dismissed him - until, amazingly, it started to look like he might just win. He was inventing the new conservative political culture we know now, in which a vision of patriotism rooted in a sense of American limits was derailed in America’s Bicentennial year by the rise of the smiling politician from Hollywood. Against a backdrop of melodramas from the Arab oil embargo to Patty Hearst to the near-bankruptcy of America’s greatest city, The Invisible Bridge asks the question: what does it mean to believe in America? To wave a flag - or to reject the glibness of the flag wavers?

©2014 Rick Perlstein (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved

Great Political Series

Great Series of Political Books, highlighting all the behind the scenes action of the political campaigns of the 1960s and 70s, sadly I refuse to finish the series as I will not Tolerate Censorship that is present in the final installment "Reagan Land".
If Audible continues to censor it's offerings I will cancel my Long Standing Membership, I will not be treated as a child and have a Audible dictate for the purpose of Political Correctness what I am allowed to hear and not hear.
All else aside this is a Very Well done Documentary series of the Politics and Culture of the 1960s and 70s, I highly recommend.

Interesting study of recent history.

Mostly balanced view of Watergate and the rise of Reagan conservatism with a hapless Gerald Ford waiting to be trounced by Jimmy Carter.

Superb political narrative, bias notwithstanding

A self-identified political liberal, Perlstein's book generated a bunch of controversy related to too-liberal use of other people's work, in the mode of Kearns-Goodwin, Biden and other leftist Untouchables. But...the book itself, despite a good deal of dripping sarcasm about conservatism and conservative political figures, is such a terrific piece of social as well as political history that much a contre-coeur, I could not "put it down" for hours on end. A must-read for anyone wanting to get a sense of the 1970s and the rise of the great (yes, and even the author seems to get used to the idea) Ronald Reagan. His narration of the events of the 1976 Republican convention should be required reading.

A bit slow-moving

This was overall pretty interesting, but of the 4 volumes of this series, this was the one I enjoyed the least. The long biographical sections were overall worthwhile in the insight they offered, and the detailed account of the Watergate investigation was fascinating. There were lengthy accounts of concurrent events in popular culture that seemed to go on too long sometimes, and I had less of a sense of an overall story arc to follow which left me a little less engaged than I was with the other 3 volumes. But it was overall worthwhile to listen to--lots of information.

Discaimer: I didn’t finish

Once you’ve read Robert Caro’s books, the standard for Biographies is very high. I found it hard to dig into this. For me it was too much of a collage of anecdotes. I’ll give another go at it at a later time.