The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro

Robert A. Caro’s massive three volume (soon to be four) biography of Lyndon Johnson, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, requires much of a reader, but it delivers as much as anyone could ask.  Detailing Johnson’s early life (Path to Power), his election to the U.S. Senate (Means of Ascent), and his dramatic changing of the Senate (Master of the Senate) in service of his relentless quest for his ultimate goal, the Presidency, Caro uses careful research and masses of detail to bring to life this complex, difficult, and secretive political master.  Because he has chosen to emphasize detail and apparently not worried about length (the first three volumes consume more than 2000 pages) Caro’s biography brings to life the worlds in which Johnson functioned and the life and legend he created.

Caro is perhaps at his best as a writer in the lengthy profiles of living conditions and personalities who dominated the early and mid-twentieth century.  In Path to Power Caro details the development of Texas’ Hill Country, showing how the beautiful land  provided only enough water and soil to raise people’s hopes only to dash those hopes when they tried to exploit the land.  His picture of the life of women without electricity in the Hill Country of the twenties and thirties shows clearly why Democrats were able to keep the people’s loyalty for generations.  When the lights went on, life changed immediately.  In  ­Path to Power, Caro’s profile of Johnson’s opponent in the senatorial race, Coke Stevenson, paints a picture of a man of probity and integrity who never should have lost an election to Lyndon Johnson.  Caro shows beyond question that Johnson stole the race.  In Master of the Senate, Richard Russell of Georgia emerges as a rounded character of great integrity and ability despite his positions on racial issues.

Each of the three books takes up major themes that coalesce to provide a picture of the complete Lyndon Johnson.  In Path to Power Caro presents Johnson’s successful efforts to bring public electric power to the Hill Country.  In Means of Ascent, Johnson steals the Senatorial election.  Master of the Senate describes his conversion to support of civil rights and his efforts to pass the civil rights bill of 1957 as a component of his drive to attain the presidency.  In every case Johnson subordinates whatever ideals he might have to the practical politics of furthering his own ambition.