Anyone read the Robert Caro series on LBJ?

[dixiegrrrrl]

Robert Caro's 4th book about Lyndon Johnson "Passage of Power" is due out May 1st.
There was some concern that Caro would die before he finished it ( health issues)

I read the previous 3 books. They are fascinating, revealing, awesome in detail.
"Master of the Senate" is particulary good ,since it covers a time period I remember,
and has quite fascinationg details of Texas politics, including some of chicanery Johnson used to win elelctions.

Caro admitted to a dislike of Johnson as he started the biography, but said he later came to have some respect for him.

Warning if you have not read Caro..his books are BIG, packed with details, and really need re-reading to grasp evrything.
Worth it, tho, on a rainy weekend.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Utterly awesome !! I have been wondering if/when the 4th vol. would be out !

It really takes a slice out of your life to spend the time reading such huge books, but what a great read !

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. He also wrote about Robert Moses of New York.

I am STILL reading that book, have been for months.

The Power Broker (1974), a biography of New York urban planner Robert Moses, and chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Read it. :^) (No spoilers)

I read somewhere that the original MS for "The Power Broker" was about 1/3 longer (1 M words vs 750 k) and Caro was pushed to trim it by the publisher. I can't help but wonder what I missed in those other 250,000 words.

I remember seeing the announcement that "Master of the Senate" had won a Pulitzer. I have never rooted for a sports team, but I knew then how a fan would feel to see "his" team had won the championship. I just felt it would be a travesty if Caro hadn't won a Pulitzer, but I thought the 2nd volume deserved it as much as the 3rd.

I didn't realize he's 76 yrs old, and supposedly working on a 5th volume. That leaves me a little worried.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Yeah, that is why people were worried about this latest book coming out.

He is workiing on a 5th volune of LBJ??????

Gosh I knew Johnson was BIG, but........

[eppur_se_muova]

6. According to his Wikipedia bio -- which is an interesting read in itself. nt

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Passage of Power: The Year of Lyndon Johnson can be pre-ordered at Powell's

I've got a copy on hold for me as soon as it arrives at our local library.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/18-9780679405078-42

[ramapo]

7. Working on It

I have been reading Master of the Senate. It is an amazing work. I have learned so much about the Senate. It is at least as much about how "things work" as it is about LBJ. It is quite the history lesson too, providing insights into events that I never imagined. What I have learned so far is that what we are seeing today; the gridlock, the extreme partisanship, the triumph of the minority over the majority, the purchase of elected officials, is all simply business as usual. It has become even more obvious to me that the Senate is a blight on our entire nation, a refuge for those dedicated to the rich, a home to a lot of hate and intolerance. The prospects for change are quite dim

Indeed there have been only brief intervals in the past 100 years when much of anything of consequence was accomplished in the Senate, and hence Congress and the nation.

Caro is laying out how LBJ basically faked out his fellow Senators, gained power while turning many of the Senate traditions upside down, and perhaps culminating in the passage of some civil rights legislation that Caro introduces the book with.

The book is rich in detail and you learn a lot about the characters who populated the Senate. If you are old enough, many of the names will be familiar, Hubert Humphrey and Richard Russell to name just two. You will learn a lot about these men.

I don't know that I have it in me to read the first two books. I can't imagine either can be as interesting but I might give them a try but not until after reading Passage of Power. And I also am thinking I will need to go back through Master of the Senate to best make sense of everything that went on during the time that the book spans.

I hope Caro is able to put out a fifth book covering LBJ's remaining years (or would that take two more books?).

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. About reading those other books

Remember Johnson was from Texas, same place as the rise of lots of political folks, AND of Brown and Root
and Halliburton.
Won't give you any spoilers, but the first 2 books have LOTS of intertwined history.
How Johnson stole some elections is one revelation.
Sometimes I have to speed up my reading rate on books like Caro's, just to get thru them.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

9. I did have a problem with Means of Ascent

Apparently, Caro believes that Coke Stevenson, LBJ's opponent in the 1948 Senate race, should seriously be considered for sainthood. From what I have read, Stevenson was a racist even by Southern standards of his time.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Caro admits his dislike for Johnson in the 2 early books

and I noticed the tenor had changed in the 3rd/4th books, which is when Caro said he had come to have grudging respect for some of Johnson's deeds.
The whole series is sure detailed enough.

[ramapo]

11. Working on Path to Power

I started with Master of the Senate. Simply awesome. I did not think I would be interested in the earlier books so I started Passage of Power. But then a friend started out with the first book so that plus dixiegrrrrl's recommendation got me to try Volume 1 and there is something to be said for starting in the beginning.

I am now about two-thirds through it and it too is awesome. It is a true history lesson encompassing the years proceeding Roosevelt's election, the New Deal, the settling of West Texas. Caro lays out the economic and environmental challenges of life in Texas. He provides a lot of insight into the Republican and Democratic party philosophies. Of course, all this information is woven around the life of LBJ but the series is so much more than about just one man. But what an amazing individual he was. I only remember LBJ as president and those are mostly not so good memories. In many ways he was an awful person, but he managed to do a lot of good too.

[SpearthrowerOwl]

12. Fascinating books

I became interested in Lyndon Johnson recently and took it upon myself to find a comprehensive take on his entire political career. After a quick Amazon search and some time spent at the local bookstore, I decided on Robert Caro's The Path to Power over the Dorris Kearns Goodwin book for a first introduction to Lyndon Johnson (it looked more comprehensive). I'd say the book is easily the most important book I've read where I basically decided to read about the subject off a whim. I'm at the point where LBJ becomes a congressional assistant, and up to this point it's been completely amazing. Caro's treatment of Johnson's background, what motivated his life's work, it's fantastic. As people have said, it's not so much a great biography - and it is - as much as a treatment of the times and histories intimately linked with Lyndon Johnson (his treatment of Texas as the origin of the late 19th century populist movement was a welcome surprise) and the actual specific way in which power in our society truly works. It's about power. It's about putting a face on the true reality of the power system we as members of this time in history find ourselves. There's no vague comments about freedom and democracy, rather, this is the nitty gritty reality of the power system.

Recently I've heard Bill Moyers (Lyndon Johnson's press secretary, but most well known as the legendary PBS journalist of good conscience) basically endorse the Randall Woods book about Lyndon Johnson during an interview on youtube (saying something about how Woods almost knew the events of Johnson's political life better than even Moyers remembered them), so I'm probably going to check that book out as well. I haven't heard Moyer's opinion about Caro's books, but I suspect I know how he probably feels about them.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. It was interesting that Caro disliked Johnson in the beginning

and then, as I read thru the series, the tone changed, and Caro later had spoken of his growing respect of Johnson,
as his life details became more clear.
even better, despite Caro's feelings one way or the other, he wrote a pretty straighforward piece, overall.
( LOTS of words, tho...lots and lots and lots)

[SpearthrowerOwl]

14. Caro's changing opinion

heh, yeah, I feel that the books are simply too wordy, his style is really lengthy, and as I am a slow precise analytical reader (I'm used to almost exclusively reading physics textbooks and writings where basically half the thought process is omitted and the reader is required to really do a chunk of the work of reading...) it's been a particularly slow process.

I've heard that the Randall Woods book is written with a little more emphasis on Lyndon Johnson's passion for the poor and positive achievements. Caro certainly doesn't ignore this, but he makes sure the reader has little doubt about LBJ's more nefarious endeavors. And as Caro is centrally interested in power, it's no surprise that he would focus a lot of time on the so often ignored realities about the types of personalities that so ruthlessly seek and execute power. This brings me to what I suspect Bill Moyers would say about the Path to Power. I suspect he would find Caro's extensive research to be particularly enlightening, fascinating, and would probably agree about the conclusions Caro comes to in regards to Johnson's motivations, personality, and confusing oscillation between cruel inhuman behavior and occasional altruism.

But as you say his tone changes during the course of his research, it's possible that Lyndon might also have changed for the better in the course of his life development. It's also of course possible that starting at the chronological beginning of Lyndon Johnson, as Caro did, as opposed to the end, as many who study LBJ simply as a means of understanding the Great Society do, leads to different takes on the same material. And of course, Johnson's greatest achievements seem to have come at the end of his career during his presidency, but also, of course, the great evil that was American involvement in Vietnam. With more of a focus on this period, different conclusions could be made. No doubt, it seems that experts like Moyers and Caro seem to have a similar message and probably only differ in minute detail.

Being in Houston, I can't wait to finish the book whereupon I intend on visiting the LBJ library in Austin (I've been to Johnson City and the Johnson Ranch when I was younger, but as I had no reason to appreciate LBJ then without an education, I am probably going to try and visit the area again.)