On Friday, RNLA will host Paul Carter, author of Richard Nixon: California's Native Son, for its first webinar of the fall. (Register here!) As the book summary explains, Carter's research takes a fresh look at the life of President Richard Nixon and traces his life journey wich began and ended in Southern California:
Modern biographies of Richard Nixon have been consumed with Watergate. All have missed arguably the most important perspective on Nixon as California’s native son, the only U.S. president born and raised in California. In addition, Nixon was also a son, brother, friend, husband, father, uncle, and grandfather. By shifting the focus from Watergate and Washington to Nixon’s deep, defining roots in California, Paul Carter boldly challenges common conceptions of the thirty-seventh president of the United States.
More biographies have been written on Nixon than any other U.S. politician. Yet the territory traversed by Carter is unexplored, revealing for the first time the people, places, and experiences that shaped Richard Nixon and the qualities that garnered him respect from those who knew him well.
Born in Yorba Linda and raised in Whittier, California, Nixon succeeded early in life, excelling in academics while enjoying athletics through high school. At Whittier College he graduated at the top of his class and was voted Best Man on Campus. During his career at Whittier’s oldest law firm, he was respected professionally and became a chief trial attorney. As a military man in the South Pacific during World War II, he was admired by his fellow servicemen. Returning to his Quaker roots after the war, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate, and the vice presidency, all within six short years. After losing to John Kennedy in the 1960 presidential campaign, Nixon returned to Southern California to practice law. After losing his gubernatorial race he reinvented himself: he moved to New York and was elected president of the United States in 1968. He returned to Southern California after Watergate and his resignation to heal before once again taking a place on the world stage.
Richard Nixon: California’s Native Son is the story of Nixon’s Southern California journey from his birth in Yorba Linda to his final resting place just a few yards from the home in which he was born.
Carter's book is already receiving rave reviews.
“Richard Nixon: California’s Native Son is remarkably well done and is the best biography of my brother that I have read. . . . Paul Carter has crafted a fascinating, lawyerly narrative, scrupulously following the evidence in his research. By shifting the focus of Dick’s life from Washington, DC, to Southern California for the very first time, the true Dick Nixon is revealed. For those who have not yet made up their mind about my brother, this will provide revelatory reading.”—Edward C. Nixon, brother of Richard Nixon
“Richard Nixon: California’s Native Son is superb—there’s really nothing like it in the Nixon literature, or even in the literature of the American presidency. Ed Nixon refers to Paul Carter’s work as ‘lawyerly,’ and that captures a lot of what makes the book invaluable: the careful assembling of masses of material after exhaustive research, presented with the clarity of style and directness of argument that the best lawyers command. I’m wowed by the whole thing.”—Andrew Ferguson, author of Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America and former speechwriter for President George H. W. Bush
Learn more about Paul Carter's extensive research into the life of President Nixon at https://richardnixonsocal.com/.