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Hello friends, welcome to another episode of the vast majority. I'm Jack Mendeppity Editor, Micah Utrecht.

Today I am joined for a kind of a book club, I guess, although you do not have to have read the book in question in order to get something out of the episode.

I'm joined by Chapel Trap House's Matt Christman to discuss the book Reagan Land, America's Right Turn 1976 to 1980 by Rick Pearlstein.

This book is the fourth installment of a four-part book series by Pearlstein that began with his book before the storm about Barry Goldwater and the origins of the new right.

His most famous book, probably came out after that, Nixon Land, and then the Invisible Bridge a few years ago, and this book is number four.

Matt and I talk about the book Reagan Land, and I would highly recommend listeners get copies of any and or all of his four books because they are indispensable reading for understanding the current political cultural moment that we're in.

But you do not have to have read any of the books, I think, to get something out of the conversation that we have.

Also, it is a bit of a heavy lift, I'm picking up the book right now. If you can hear it, it's like 1,100 pages long, it's definitely a brick of a book as are all four of his books.

But take it from me and Matt Christman, all four of the books are definitely worth it.

So here's our conversation about Rick Pearlstein's Reagan Land and the culture and politics of the late 1970s as well as our current era.

Matt, hello.

Hi.

So we're here kind of like two person book club we're doing today with this book, Reagan Land America's Right Turn 1976 to 1980 by Rick Pearlstein.

And Pearlstein is a liberal occasionally social democratic-ish historian, and this is the fourth book in his series on the emergence of the new right that goes from the Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964.

To Ronald Reagan winning the presidency in 1980.

You and I both have read all four of these massive books that Pearlstein has written.

Can you just start with like, why read this guy, Pearlstein? What to you is distinctive about him and makes him worthwhile slogging through these like 1,000 page books?

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