Try as I might, I cannot remember the last time my teenaged son voluntarily picked up and read one of the history books I favour. However, when I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Nixonland, the new book by Rick Perlstein, set out in delicious detail the history of the anti-Vietnam War movement in the U.S. and the rise of the hippies, my lad promptly asked if he could have a look. It took three days to get the book back.

Next up was my partner, who, like me, was in university when the war was on. She whipped through the first 40 pages of Nixonland on a road trip and started quoting stuff from the book that she had forgotten, or didn’t know about. I’ll bet you a slightly used pair of granny glasses that she finishes this one on the beach.

While the book is bulky, at 748 pages of recent American political historical narrative, and deadly serious in its argument that America, 34 years after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace, remains in the grip of the ideological war he helped foment, it is richly detailed and tough to put down. Throw in the fact that it appears to be fun for the whole family, and we just might have this year’s perfect hot weather read.

Perlstein has done an astonishing job on this book, weaving his narrative out of thousands of pieces of information about the Nixon period from sources as varied as old television footage of the ’68 Democratic convention in Chicago to the front pages of the daily paper in Rockford, Ill.

A faithful student of American politics is likely to recognize some of the information, which covers the period from the race riots in Los Angeles’s Watts ghetto in 1965 to Nixon’s departure from office. However, the research is so comprehensive that even an experienced historian will find something new. The author’s eye for the telling anecdote and skill with a phrase makes this book a pleasure to read, despite the serious subject matter. The accessible style of Nixonland will appeal to the young, who seem especially interested in knowing what it was like in the 1960s, when their parents were faced with an unpopular American war.

Obviously, Perlstein’s thesis, that Nixon and his fellow right-wingers encouraged and benefited from the ideological divide that plagues America today, won’t be embraced by everyone. However, the author tells a story that is sufficiently compelling to interest even those who might disagree with his analysis — the test of good historical writing.