Reviews:
The Washington Post book review:
“In his engrossing, well-crafted, The Hardhat Riot . . . [that’s] deeply researched . . . Kuhn argues persuasively that the riot sparked a vast national political shift driven by a widening divide between the working class and the educated elite that has led to the era of the Trump presidency. . . . Corrects some misperceptions . . . Kuhn writes with empathy for both sides. . . . Kuhn’s accounts of the violence are vivid and raw. . . . The author concludes with a sharp analysis of how the revolt of the White working class almost immediately reshaped American politics, beginning with Nixon’s opportunistic claim of blue-collar Whites as “Silent Majority” supporters of his law-and-order presidency. Kuhn shows the reverberations over the decades, right up to the making of Donald Trump’s political base. . . . Kuhn argues that class divisions have driven people so far apart that it’s as if Americans now live in ‘entirely different places, even if they are still called by one name—America.’”
The New York Times Book Review:
“The Hardhat Riot, by David Paul Kuhn, vividly evokes . . . a blue-collar rampage whose effects still ripple, not the least of them being Donald Trump’s improbable ascension to the presidency . . . this is a compelling narrative.”
The Washington Examiner book review:
“[An] important new book … Kuhn details a series of wrenching national events in the late 1960s through the early 1970s that scrambled longtime national political coalitions, which, more than a half-century later . . . explains in elegant and expert fashion how [Trump] won so much support among blue-collar white voters.”
The Wall Street Journal book review:
“[Kuhn] e has synthesized his message with a lesson from history: The Hardhat Riot, a riveting account of . . . [a] clash on the streets of New York [that] came to symbolize the irreconcilable division taking shape in the rest of the country. . . . By capturing the moment Mr. Kuhn reminds us of how divisive this era really was . . . Kuhn avoids polemics and judgment, yet leads the reader to understand the deeper questions implicit in so many of today’s political debates. . . The Hardhat Riot insightfully explains why and how this happened. Perhaps the Democratic Party’s leaders will finally understand what David Paul Kuhn has been trying to tell them.”
About the Author:
David Paul Kuhn is a writer and political analyst living in New York City. Kuhn has served as the chief political writer for CBS News online, a senior political writer for Politico as well as chief political correspondent at RealClearPolitics. He has also written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, National Review, New Republic, among other publications, and regularly appears on networks ranging from BBC to Fox News. He is the author of, most recently, The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution. You can read more about him at DavidPaulKuhn.com.
