One Of Us: Richard Nixon And The American Dream

Wicker's theme is that Nixon personified a lamentable twentieth-century American preference for power over ideas-"one of us" even while being "a man alone, a man who was not much loved because he could not love." The book's strength derives from the author's insights and years of direct observation rather than from new research. The attention to the domestic as well as the international achievements of the Nixon presidency is admirable.