ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the dawn of psychohistory's appearance as a legitimate method and subcategory in the historical sciences. Over two decades since his death in 1994, Richard Nixon remains an enigmatic and fascinating figure in American political history. Bruce Mazlish's In Search of Nixon stands out as early and innovative effort to use psychohistory to uncover the man and his motives. The insightfulness of In Search of Nixon may well be judged, at least in good measure, by its author's ability to help the reader to understand the self-destructive actions that led Nixon to resign in the face of Watergate crisis. Indeed, "crisis" is a term that Nixon himself used to define most momentous events in his political life. Without directing the reader to Simmel's text, Mazlish's description of Nixon's characteristic ambivalence suggests that he came most alive when finding himself on edge of adventurous and stressful risk-taking. To Simmel we may add Max Weber's work on charismatic leaders.
