Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man

Garry Wills

Political History / Biography

Wills's 1969 study of Nixon uses him as a lens for diagnosing the contradictions in the American liberal consensus—free markets, self-reliance, and the anxiety underneath both. It is less a biography than a forensic examination of ideology, written while Nixon was still in office. Collison flagged it as particularly great; the book's interest in how economic ideas shape politics aligns with his Progress Studies lens.