Rick Perlstein | |
|---|---|
 In Chicago (2013) | |
| Born | September 3, 1969 (1969-09-03) (age 56) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Education | University of Chicago (BA) University of Michigan (MA)[1] |
| Period | 1994–present |
| Subject | Conservatism in the United States |
Rick Perlstein (born September 3, 1969) is an American historian, writer and journalist[2] who has garnered recognition for his chronicles of the post-1960s Americanconservative movement.[3] The author of five bestselling books, Perlstein received the 2001Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History for his first book,Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus.[4]Politico has dubbed him "a chronicler extraordinaire of modern conservatism."[2]
Perlstein was born inMilwaukee, Wisconsin to aReform Jewish family, the second child of Jerold and Sandra (née Friedman) Perlstein.[5][6] His father ran Bonded Messenger Service, a delivery company founded by his grandfather in 1955. Perlstein grew up in theBayside andFox Point neighborhoods of suburban Milwaukee, taking cross country trips with his parents and siblings to national landmarks likeMount Rushmore andYellowstone National Park.[7] In high school, upon earning his driver's license, Perlstein would head toRenaissance Books in downtown Milwaukee, and spend hours in its basement among stacks of old magazines from the 1960s. He later recounted in an interview: "I ended up getting my own archive on the 1960s culture wars. That's where it started."[8] He also wrote inRolling Stone: "A sixties obsessive since childhood, I misspent my teenage years prowling a ramshackle five-story used-book warehouse that somehow managed ... to stay one step ahead of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's building inspectors."[9] Following graduation fromNicolet High School, Perlstein attended theUniversity of Chicago, earning a bachelor's degree inhistory in 1992.[10] While at the University of Chicago – years Perlstein described as "delightfully noisy and dissident", and a stark contrast to the suburbia of his youth, which "felt like a jail" – he was able to engage with and catch neighborhood jam sessions.[11]
After graduate study inAmerican studies at theUniversity of Michigan, Perlstein moved to New York in 1994, settling in thePark Slope neighborhood ofBrooklyn.[12] While in New York, Perlstein interned atLingua Franca, a magazine about academic and intellectual life, where he would become an associate editor.[13] Perlstein also began writing book reviews, for publications likeThe Nation andSlate.[14][15] It was Perlstein's 1996Lingua Franca essay "Who Owns the Sixties?" that won him public notice, by exposing the emerging chasm between older and younger historians.[16] The essay also aroused the attention of a literary agent and soon after earned him a grant from theNational Endowment for the Humanities.[13]
In December 2023, Perlstein was hired byThe American Prospect to contribute a weekly column/email newsletter on media criticism, history and the2024 United States elections, titledThe Infernal Triangle.[17][18]
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As of 2020[update], Perlstein had published four notable books on the subject of modern American conservatism.
In 1997, Perlstein began work on a history of the rise ofBarry Goldwater, a transformative event for the conservative movement. Perlstein's book,Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, was released in 2001 to widespread acclaim, including a laudatory review inThe New York Times byWilliam Kristol, editor of the conservativeWeekly Standard. Kristol wrote ofBefore the Storm, "It's an amazing story, and Perlstein, a man of the left, does it justice."[19] Perlstein won the 2001Los Angeles TimesBook Prize in History.[20] Soon after, Perlstein moved from New York toChicago. Perlstein was the national political correspondent forThe Village Voice from 2003 to 2005, and contributed articles to publications that includedThe New York Times,The New Republic andThe American Prospect.
Beginning in spring 2007 through 2009 Perlstein was a Senior Fellow at theCampaign for America's Future where he wrote for its blogThe Big Con about the failures of conservative governance. A co-director at the Campaign for America's Future once noted, "Rick was unique. … I don't know when he sleeps."[21][22][23]
In May 2008, Perlstein'sNixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America was published to rave reviews.[24][25][26][27][28][29] In his review, the conservative columnistGeorge Will credited Perlstein having "a novelist's, or perhaps an anthropologist's, eye for illuminating details" and calledNixonland "compulsively readable."[30] At the end of 2008,The New York Times includedNixonland among its notable books.[31] In 2009,The A.V. Club included it among the best books of the decade.[32]
In August 2014,Simon & Schuster publishedThe Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. In hisNew York Times review,Frank Rich wrote that the tome was "a Rosetta stone for reading America and its politics today."[33]The Invisible Bridge received favorable reviews fromThe New Yorker,Slate, andThe Washington Post among others.
In August 2020, Perlstein published a book narrating the events of the four years up to and includingRonald Reagan's victorious presidential race againstincumbentJimmy Carter in November 1980.[34]Reaganland: America's Right Turn, 1976–1980 is Perlstein's longest publication at almost 1,200 pages; he labeled it his final book aimed at answering the question: "How did the United States devolve from a country where Barry Goldwater was trounced in the 1964 presidential election to one where Reagan, his ideological heir, triumphed just sixteen years later?"[35]
The book received favorable reviews fromThe Guardian,[36] theLos Angeles Times,[37] andThe New Republic.[38]Reaganland was one of theNew York Times 100 Notables Books of 2020.[39] It was also subject to a scathing critique inCommentary bySteven F. Hayward, himself an author of a two-part volume on Reagan.[40]
Conservative author and public relations consultantCraig Shirley has alleged thatThe Invisible Bridge stole distinctive words and phrasing from his 2004 book,Reagan's Revolution.[41] Perlstein's supporters regarded the criticism as a partisan attack. Responding to numerous complaints,Times public editorMargaret Sullivan dismissed the plagiarism allegations as a "smear" and criticized the reporting for "conferr[ing] a legitimacy on the accusation it would not otherwise have had."[42]
Responding to letters from Shirley and his attorneys, Perlstein's publisher, Simon & Schuster, stated that the claims of plagiarism "ignored the most basic principle of copyright law." Those same letters from Shirley's attorneys demanded that Simon & Schuster pay Shirley $25 million in damages, pull all copies ofThe Invisible Bridge and take out ads of apology in various publications. If these demands weren't met, the letters promised that a lawsuit would be filed on July 30, 2014, nearly a week before the book was to be released on August 5. On August 9, 2014, it was reported that there was no evidence a lawsuit had ever been filed.[43] For his part, Perlstein said, "Mr. Shirley has sued me for $25 million and tried to keep people from reading my book; I've told everyone to read his book."[44]
