John Nichols Boeken

"Fighting fascism at home and abroad begins with the consolidation of a progressive politics. Seventy-five years ago, Henry Wallace, then the vice president of the United States, mounted a campaign about the “Danger of American Fascism.” As fighting in the European and Japanese theatres drew to a close, Wallace warned that the country might win the war and lose the peace; that the fascist threat the United States was battling abroad had a terrifying domestic variant, growing rapidly in power: wealthy corporatists and their allies in the media. Wallace predicted that if the New Deal project was not renewed and expanded in the postwar era, American fascists would use fear mongering, xenophobia, and racism to regain economic and political power. He championed a progressive postwar world—an alternative to the rising triumphalist “American Century” notion in which the United States rejected colonialism and imperialism. Wallace’s political vision—as well as his nomination to remain vice president—was sidelined by Democratic big city bosses and southern segregationists. In the decades to come, other progressives would mount similar campaigns: George McGovern and Jesse Jackson most prominently. As John Nichols chronicles in this book, they ultimately failed—a warning to would-be reformers today—but their efforts provide us with insights into the nature of the Democratic Party and strategic lessons for the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."--Publisher's description

Argues that the infusion of more and more cash into election campaigns is leading to predictable results, reducing political elections to little more than a numbers game and allowing the powers that be to practically buy an election.

Joe Mondragon, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, slammed his battered pickup to a stop, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into the arid patch of ground. Carefully (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began-though few knew it at the time-the Milagro beanfield war. But like everything else in the dirt-poor town of Milagro, it would be a patchwork war, fought more by tactical retreats than by battlefield victories. Gradually, the small farmers and sheepmen begin to rally to Joe's beanfield as the symbol of their lost rights and their lost lands. And downstate in the capital, the Anglo water barons and power brokers huddle in urgent conference, intent on destroying that symbol before it destroys their multimillion-dollar land-development schemes. The tale of Milagro's rising is wildly comic and lovingly ter, a vivid portrayal of a town that, half-stumbling and partly prodded, gropes its way toward its own stubborn salvation.

A furious denunciation of coronavirus criminals

Boom times came to the forgotten little southwestern town of Chamisaville just as the rest of America was in the Great Depression. They came when a rattletrap bus loaded with stolen dynamite blew sky-high, leaving behind a giant gushing hot spring. Within minutes, the town's wheeler-dealers had organized, and within a year, Chamisaville was flooded with tourists and pilgrims, and the wheeler-dealers were rich.Spanning forty years, The Magic Journey tells the tale of how progress transformed a rural backwater into a boomtown. At first, it was a magic time for Chamisaville—almost as if every day were a holiday. But the euphoria gradually dissipated, and the land-hungry developers, speculators, and interlopers moved in. Finally, the day came when Chamisaville's people found themselves all but displaced, their children no longer heirs to their land or their tradition. With mounting intensity, The Magic Journey reaches a climax that is tragically foreordained. A sensitive, vital, and honest chronicle of life in America's Southwest, it is also an incisive commentary on what America has become on its road to progress.The Magic Journey is part of the New Mexico Trilogy, which includes The Milagro Beanfield War and The Nirvana Blues.

"John Nichols has remarkable insight into life's crazy blend of comedy and tragedy. . . . Pure pleasure to read." -New York Times Book Review

It's Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, when ex-patriots, artists, and colorful bums are kings. A tiny stand selling empanadas near the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal streets is the center of the action for the shy narrator, an aspiring writer just out of college. At the stand he falls in with a crowd of kooky outcasts from Argentina who introduce him to their raucous adventures, melodramatic dreamsand women, particularly a tough little flamenco dancer from Buenos Aires. Charming and insightful, this deceptively simple novel is a tale told by a master. It is a wise coming-of-age story, full of joyand touched by heartbreak, that captures a special time and place with extraordinary empathy and humor.

The seventies are over. All across America, the overgrown kids of the middle class are getting their acts together--and getting older. The once-tight Chicano community of Chamisaville is long gone, and the Anglo power brokers control almost everything. Joe Miniver--faithful husband, loving father, and all-around good guy―is about to sink roots. To buy the land he wants, he dreams up a coke scam that will net him the necessary bread. Joe is also about to embark on a series of erotic adventures with three headstrong women, bringing him face-to-face with the terrors (and absurdity) of the modern man-woman scene.This final volume in the New Mexico trilogy, like its predecessors, is a lusty, visionary novel that blends comedy and tragedy, reality and fantasy, tenderness and bite, to illuminate some very troubling truths about America--truths no less pointed and accurate today than they were twenty years ago.John Nichols is the author of nine novels and six works of nonfiction. He lives in Northern New Mexico.

Boom times came to the forgotten little southwestern town of Chamisaville just as the rest of America was in the Great Depression. They came when a rattletrap bus loaded with stolen dynamite blew sky high, leaving behind a giant gushing hot spring. Within minutes, the town's wheeler-dealers had organized, and within a year, Chamisaville was flooded with tourists and pilgrims. The wheeler-dealers were rich -- and that was only the beginning . . . "John Nichols has all of Steinbeck's gifts, the same overwhelming compassion for people plus an even finer sense of humor, and I the need to celebrate the cause and dignity of man...he has left us with a classic American trilogy for our time." --Chicago Tribune John Nichols is a marvelous tale spinner...as huge and quirky an American talent as has materialized in the past twenty years." --Los Angeles Herald Examiner "A storyteller of uncommon wit and inventiveness." --Cleveland Plain Dealer