by Robert A. Caro
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Product Description
This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart. It follows him from the Hill Country to New Deal Washington, from his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, at age 31, of the national power for which he hungered. In this book, we are brought as close as we have ever been to a true perception of political genius and the American political process.
Means of Ascent, Book Two of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, was a number one national best seller and, like The Path to Power, received the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Amazon.com Review
The profound understanding of the uses and abuses of power Robert Caro displayed in his 1974 biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, is a scathing achievement the author surpassed with panache in this, his second book. Caro's dogged research and refusal to accept received wisdom results in an eye-opening portrait that unforgettably captures the titanic personality of Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973). Though stronger on Johnson's duplicity and naked self-promotion than his intelligence and charm, Caro nails it all. He chronicles the evolution of an attention-demanding youth from the Texas hill country into a seasoned congressman who would abandon his ardent espousal of the New Deal as soon as it ceased to be expedient. The dirty details begin with college elections that earn young Lyndon a reputation as a crook and a liar; Caro goes on to unravel financial shenanigans of impressive ingenuity. Johnson's consuming desire to get ahead and his political genius "unencumbered by philosophy or ideology" are staggering. The White House, Great Society, and Vietnam lie ahead when the main narrative closes in 1941, but the roots of Johnson's future achievements and tragic failures are laid bare. This biography may well stand as the best book written in the second half of the 20th century about personal ambition inextricably linked with historic change. --Wendy Smith
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Ambition and Narcissism, 2008-11-06
Ambition and Narcissism
I wish I could remember what I thought of LBJ when I voted for the first time in 1960. Moving to Berkeley that Fall to work on my doctorate, I kept my residency in Illinois in order to vote for JFK in what would be a crucial swing state. Those who believe Gore was robbed of the election in 2000 forget that JFK won by something like one vote in every county in the country. Mine was one of those. But I can only remember LBJ through the lens of his civil rights presidency and his tragic flaw, Vietnam. Listening to the first three volumes of Caro's work on tape, I can't help feeling that it in order to make sense of the LBJ he has painted we need to know what happened to him when he became president. Where is volume four? Were my feelings toward LBJ in 1960 analogous to what I thought of JFK's phony missile gap and Cuba bashing. Did I regard LBJ simply as a bad guy JFK needed as VP in order to get elected (As it turned out Cuba policy was not expediency until JFK woke up during the Bay of Pigs; after the election the missile gap simply was disappeared). Did I have any idea what a fowl piece of work LBJ was? Well Caro leaves us no doubt. Although I tired of the author's repeated descriptions of how LBF invaded what is called personal space: his ham hands on people shoulders, his iron grip through lapel holes---I probably would have slugged him---,had little use for the detail descriptions of the Senate chamber and would have had liked more on the political context of the third volume---what was going on after the mid fifties besides civil rights---, Caro's work is indeed monumental. We have LBJ ambitious, lying, manipulating and deeply narcissistic. He was in bed with some of the most reactionary men in the US, southern racists, McCarthyite anti-communists and reactionary Texas oil barons. LBJ's maiden "We of the South" speech and his sycophantic manipulation of lonely Richard Russell and Sam Rayburn, let alone his viscious redbaiting in his destruction of Leland Olds, are more than enough to condemn him to the trash barrel of history. His abuse of Lady Bird and then abject dependence on her after his heart attack earn him nothing but contempt. How did he pull it off for so many years and no one successfully expose him? Caro sees LBJ as a master, well that must have been the case for the years covered by the three volumes. Master magician at manipulation of people, master of working the Senate system, master of keeping his backers out of the lime light, master of tricking the Senate liberals, master at manipulating the press. And yet what did it all achieve. He ran a Truman like committee during the Korean war supposedly to expose corruption in war preparation, but unlike Truman driving around the country really looking, Johnson's committee garnered phony press coverage but did almost nothing. He was able to make the Senate a more efficient institution, but to what end. In all of Caro's writing I don't have a sense of what LBJ accomplished politically. He stifled civil rights under the guise of passing a civil rights bill. He enriched his backers, but what was his role in the Cold War, economic justice, etc. Maybe I missed that in all the detail of how he ran the Senate.
In volume one, Caro's history of the Senate is interesting. I get it that the Senate stood in the way of reform in the years after reconstruction. His treatment of Russell is masterful both in how Russell kept the appearance of Southern liberalism despite the vicious racist and cold warrior which lay behind the facade. Although Caro paints a picture of Johnson manipulating Russell, Johnson really carried Russell's water: stymie civil rights. As the country changed after WWII and the power of both northern liberals and Negroes grew, Russell felt the South would be outnumbered unless it planted a Trojan horse in the liberal camp. Johnson was to be that Trojan horse. The 1956 civil rights debate revealed Russell's true colors when he lost it on the Senate floor, and Johnson's final bill revealed to the liberals how empty Johnson's liberalism really was. In addition Johnson's flawed attempt at getting the 1956 nomination when he had no chance showed how limited his mastery could be and how blinded he was by his narcissism. Because I listened to the books out of order, vol. 2, 3, then 1, and am a bit confused, it seems to me like Johnson went into some sort of eclipse after '56 as the Republicans began to move leftward to grab the initiative from the Democrats, particularly on civil rights, and Johnson faced the underlying contradiction that he couldn't satisfy his Southern racist backers and woo the northern liberals at the same time. Caro gives us a glimpse of what came next when he shows how the Senate rejected Johnson's' attempts to maintain control once he became vice-president and how his failure completely deflated Johnson. After Johnson left the presidency (in disgrace as I remember it), did his narcissism again invert?
I think the most dramatic parts of Caro's books are his description of civil rights in the United States. Although I worked in the Chicago stock yards in the late forties and early fifties, remember well its strict color line, its shuffling blacks, experienced segregation in New Orleans, the Klan in Indianapolis and am a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality in the 60s', I found myself becoming teary-eyed at Caro's rendition of the struggle for equality, the violence of lynching in Russell's Georgia, the hatred that dripped from the lips of Eastland and his ilk on the Senate floor. How Johnson could have pulled off any appearance of liberality is testament to how powerless Humphrey, Lehman, Douglas and others were in a racist country where Southerners had a hammerlock on the Senate. That Johnson and Russell could, through their superior understanding of Senate rules, outmaneuver the liberals was testament to the latter's' naïveté, but when push came to shove there was the filibuster and no way to overcome that---as with Bush's 2000 win---the constitution did not provide for any way around the Senate's inbuilt conservatism, even though Caro, says that prior to the civil war the Senate was the chamber for debate of great issues. After Reconstruction it became a tool of entrenched power and a stumbling block to change. It is interesting how Southern Senators could throw up Reconstruction as an evil, equivalent to Communism, in debates about civil rights. Reconstruction is, in my mind, a big hole in American history. Besides the dated works of Foner and chapters in history textbooks, I have found no good history of Reconstruction.
Well LBJ changed the US when he inherited the presidency. How that fit into who he was before 1960 is still a mystery to me. In fact there are other mysteries: his affair with Helen Gehagen Douglas, how he could get away with his abuse of the people around him, why was he never exposed in terms of his real allies---hard to image that in the age of the internet--- or maybe he was but it never took for some reason. Caro pictures LBJ as a consummate con man. Was he? Could Hubert Horatio Humphrey have been so cowed when snubbed for his hubris in his maiden Senate year (and later tutored on behavior by LBJ), that he didn't see through his one time mentor? I remember the New Left Power Structure pamphlets about LBJ, Brown and Root and Vietnam. But that was all after '66 or '67. I NEED volume four.
Charlie Fisher author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
One of the best book PERIOD., 2008-03-16
I picked up this book because I had to read a book on a president for a history class. Am I glad I got assigned LBJ as it has made me cross path with quite possibility one of the best biography ever written.
Although I have more then a passing interest in American politics, I would highly recommend this to anyone who is just mildly interested in a book such as this. The reason I say this is because the book is extremely detailed and covers all sorts of angles that bring to light a lot of areas which you normally don't on a typical biography book. The amount of information contained in this first book is staggering and you can tell where all the years Mr. Caro has spent has gone into.
The style of writing is also extremely smooth and pleasing. You will not be bored from reading this book as it almost read like a well written novel. I am surprised and amazed at how well the information is conveyed to the reader in such a pleasing manner.
One of the things I love about this book is the portrayal of some of the powerful men Johnson encounters. Caro explain the characters in a way that relates to Johnson and in the process gives you a deep angle into the motivation of both the character and Johnson.
Politics is a complex subject is is hard to understand. Most of us are on the surface and have little access and understanding of all the nooks and crannies of politics. This first book does a great job of understanding local politics and how it relates to the bigger picture. All this is done just by studying such a complex character that is Johnson during a complex period of history.
I will be reading the next two books which I'm sure will be as good as the first. Looking forward to learning more.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Get The Dirt On Lyndon, 2007-06-21
Robert Caro combines the skills of muckracker, tabloid journalist, and serious scholar to produce this magnificent volume. I read Means of Ascent 10 years ago and loved it, and Path to Power is even better.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Amazing biography, 2007-05-10
Robert Caro's biography is one of the great series ever written. This first book looks at the things that shaped LBJ's early life. The first part is focused on the parents and grandparents of LBJ. The times growing up in Texas were very interesting to read about and while I was afraid this book would not be interesting I was proven wrong quickly. The hill country is a fascinating place and you can see the poverty that Texas experienced even before the depression. Most striking is Lyndon Johnson's childhood where he was an almost constant terror to his parents who loved him anyway. He would runaway constantly. After running away to California he came back and was involved in a series of local gangs and street races. His parents were finally able to talk some sense into him and he went to college
Lyndon Johnson continued his pompous attitude at college and was notable for creating the political scene at Southwest Texas teachers college. He was constantly in debt during his college years but played the political game well becoming friends with the president of the university and other top students. Although leaving college several times hew as able to thrive there. He was able to gain a job in Washington DC as a congressman's aide afterwards and built his power base.
Lyndon Johnson was an expert at the political game and he played it well in DC. This book categorizes his rise from congressman's aide to congressman in the 10th district. It shows how he built his network, worked with and against Sam Rayburn, FDR and his wife Lady Bird. Through it all he truly is shown as a manipulator and an expert political operator. He is morally reprehensible as a person throughout the entire book which was not something I expected to find. For a book about LBJ's early years this is absolutely amazing. It is so well written and you cannot wait to read what is in store next. I cannot wait to read the next three books in the series!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Lyndon Johnson, Part 1, 2007-02-04
This is the second book by Robert Caro I've read, the other being Master of the Senate. Caro's work I'm sure is probably considered the most thorough and all-encompassing study on the life and career of Lyndon Johnson. Path to Power starts with the Bunton and Johnson families who moved to the Texas Hill Country. Caro's description of this region is impressive and very effective. Establishing this setting and its nature and its isolation, we get to learn about the early years of Lyndon Johnson. This book takes us up through 1941 when Johnson first ran (and lost) a race for the U.S. Senate.
It's the Hill Country that receives a lot of attention in the first part of the book, what the land was like, how people's hopes and fortunes could be broken by it, and so forth. The nature of the Bunton and Johnson family lines, i.e. their habits, their ambitions and how they lived off the land. Anyway, these early years of Lyndon Johnson and his family, with special focus on his father who was a well-respected public servant in the Texas Legislature, are all detailed.
The Lyndon Johnson that emerges from this book is nothing short of an attention seeking, power grabbing individual who would stop at nothing to achieve his goal. His way of courting and winning favor with older people, his political savvy that came into being at the Teachers' College at San Marcos, and so forth served as indicators of the sort of man that was developing. If his father was respected and known for his principles, the son would be known for his do and say anything approach to achieve power at a higher level. This is Caro's Johnson, maybe it's a bit rough and maybe too critical at times (though his interpretation could be head-on), but that's what you'll see in this book.
To mention some of the periods in Johnson's journey to position and power, we read of his years as a teacher and debate coach, his years as a Congressional secretary, Johnson's role in the New Deal years as state coordinator of the National Youth Administration, his run for and election to Congress, his money ties to influential businessmen and lobbyists and others who would provide huge sums of money (at that time) for Johnson's political ambitions and on and on. His political skills in cultivating relations with people in power was certainly notable and his knowledge and use of political tactics and maneuvering are amazing to read about.
The book culminates with his first run for a Texas U.S. Senate seat in 1941 upon the death of one of that state's sitting senators. This section of the book is utterly captivating in terms of the unfolding nature of the primary campaign, the characters involved, the voting fraud and its aftermath. Caro's work on the career and character study of Lyndon Johnson is an impressive body of work. His assessment of Johnson in this book is not flattering, though we do see the immense political skills possessed by this remarkably ambitious man who would indeed one day achieve the highest office.
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