The Years of Lyndon Johnson

The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson by the American writer Robert Caro. Three volumes have published, running to more than 2,000 pages in total, detailing Johnson's early life, education, and political career. A fourth and fifth volume will deal with Johnson's vice presidency and presidency. The series has been published by Alfred A. Knopf.

Book One: The Path to Power (1982)

In the first volume, The Path to Power, Caro retraced Johnson's life by temporarily moving to rural Texas and Washington, D.C., to better understand Johnson's upbringing and to interview anyone who had known Johnson. This volume covers Johnson's life through his failed 1941 campaign for the United States Senate. This book was released on November 12, 1982. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Book Two: Means of Ascent (1990)

In the second volume, Means of Ascent, Caro detailed Johnson's life from the aftermath of Johnson's first Senate bid to his election to the Senate in 1948. Much of the book deals with Johnson's bitterly-contested Democratic primary against Coke R. Stevenson. This book was released on March 7, 1990.

Book Three: Master of the Senate (2002)

In the third and most-recently published volume, Master of the Senate, Caro chronicles Johnson's rapid ascent in the United States Congress, including his tenure as Senate Majority Leader. This 1167-page work examines in particular Johnson's victorious battle to pass a landmark civil rights bill. Although its scope was limited, the ensuing Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first such legislation since Reconstruction. This book was released on April 23, 2002.

It won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the 2002 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and the 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography.

Forthcoming volumes

In November 2011, it was announced that the fourth volume, tentatively titled The Passage of Power, would be released in May 2012, covering LBJ's life from 1958 to 1964, and that the full project had expanded to five volumes, with the fifth volume requiring another two to three years to write.^[1][2]

Themes of the series

Throughout his books, Caro examines the acquisition and use of political power in American democracy, from the perspective both of those who wield it and those who are at its mercy. In an interview with Kurt Vonnegut, he once said: "I was never interested in writing biography just to show the life of a great man," saying he wanted instead "to use biography as a means of illuminating the times and the great forces that shape the times—particularly political power."

Caro's books portray Johnson as alternating between scheming opportunist and visionary progressive. Caro argued, for example, that Johnson's victory in the 1948 runoff for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate was achieved through extensive fraud and ballot stuffing. Caro also highlights some of Johnson's campaign contributions, such as those from the Texas construction firm Brown & Root; in 1962 the company was acquired by another Texas firm, Halliburton, which became a major contractor in the Vietnam War. Despite these criticisms, Caro's portrayal of Johnson also notes his struggles on behalf of progressive causes such as the Voting Rights Act.

Influence of the series

Politicians in particular have responded most strongly to The Years of Lyndon Johnson:

• Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle once told the Capitol newspaper Roll Call after reading Master of the Senate that "I think the thing you learn from reading that magnificent book is that every day, this body makes history."
• Former Vice President Walter Mondale described Master of the Senate as a "superb work of history".
• Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said of the series: "It's a wonderfully written set of books. The stories are quite breathtaking... These books challenge the view of history that politics is just about individual manoeuvring. It's about ideas and principled policy achievements. That's what makes it one of the great political biographies."
• Former UK Conservative Party leader William Hague nominated Means of Ascent as the book he would most like to have with him on a desert island, in the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. He later wrote: "I explained that it was the best political biography of any kind, that I had ever read. I said it conveyed more brilliantly than any other publication what it really feels like to be a politician... When a fourth volume finally completes the set, this will be nothing short of a magnificent history of 20th century America." Michael Howard, another former Conservative Party leader, encountered the series after swapping houses with Robert Caro for a holiday. He said: "For Caro, writing a biography is writing a thriller - in Johnson's case, a Western. You can't stop turning the pages. He doesn't like Johnson, but the facts are there so you can make your own judgments. I can't recommend this book highly enough."

Lisa Simpson was shown reading Master of the Senate in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XVI." Goat was shown reading Master of the Senate in Pearls Before Swine on 13 December 2008.

Bibliography

• Caro, Robert A., The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. 1982. Alfred a Knopf Inc., New York. (ISBN 0394499735). xxiii + 882 p. + 48 p. of plates: illus.
• Caro, Robert A., The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent. 1990. Alfred a Knopf Inc., New York. (ISBN 0394528352). xxxiv + 506 pp.
• Caro, Robert A., Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. 2002. Alfred a Knopf Inc, New York. (ISBN 0-394-52836-0). xxiv + 1167 pp.

References

1. ^ "APNewsBreak: Caro's fourth LBJ book coming in May". online.wsj.com. 2011-11-01. http://online.wsj.com/article/AP5b3c3fcacee848a9a8f9891bcc7ec0e1.html. Retrieved 2011-11-09. 
2. ^ "Robert A. Caro’s Next Book on Lyndon Johnson, The Passage of Power, to be Published by Knopf in May". media-center.knopfdoubleday.com. 2011-11-01. http://media-center.knopfdoubleday.com/2011/11/01/robert-a-caros-the-passage-of-power-to-be-published-in-may. Retrieved 2011-11-09. 

External links

• Official website of Robert Caro
• Booknotes interview with Caro on Means of Ascent, April 29, 1990