This past weekend I read Garry Wills's Nixon Agonistes for... the third... or is it the fourth... time in my life. Each time I read it I feel that I have learned--and been reminded of--an enormous amount. But I also have a very hard time putting what I have learned into words: this is not a "one big thing" kind of book, for Garry Wills knows many, many things.

So let me just do two things below the fold. First, let me give you John Leonard's original review of Nixon Agonistes. Second, let me give you extensive quotes from one of Wills's many magnificent set-pieces: in this case, the long twilight struggle between Richard M. Nixon and Dwight D. Eisenhower.