Perhaps because of the pungently Nixonian odor of the Bush White House — the patriotism politics, the “l’état, c’est moi” declarations, the war — this season has delivered a bounty of books about the men of Watergate. The current climate has vitalized anxieties about the imperial presidency, drawing fresh scrutiny to the Nixon years from such eminent writers as Robert Dallek, Elizabeth Drew, Margaret MacMillan, James Reston Jr., and Jules Witcover — not to mention a Nixon biography from the scandal-plagued tycoon Conrad Black and the Broadway drama “Nixon/Frost.”
Joining this lengthening queue is Jeremi Suri, a historian at the University of Wisconsin, with a useful, idiosyncratic study, Henry Kissinger and the American Century.