![]() ![]() An alternative thesis is the one Perlstein seemed to be framing up with his first, shorter, and better book: that the crucial bridge in modern Republican politics was the one leading from Barry Goldwater to Reagan. Perlstein, by contrast, sees the move from Nixon to Reagan as continuity: Both men tried to reverse what the 1960s were doing to the country. Most historians view the Nixon-Reagan transition as a break in the ideological continuum, a shift from an era in which Republicans made peace with the growing welfare and regulatory state to one in which a newly energized conservative movement effectively challenged it. ![]() The first two books covered Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon the third spans the period from 1972 through 1976, which encompasses the end of Nixon and the rise of Reagan. Jacob Weisberg is critical of Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge, the third volume in his history of movement conservatism from 1958 to 1980. ![]()
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