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WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
NAMED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
"The fourth volume of Caro's prodigious masterwork . . . with the author's signature combination of sweeping drama, psychological insight and painstaking research."
NAMED ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR
NAMED ONE OF NEWSDAY'S TWELVE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Economist * Newsweek * Foreign Policy * Business Week * The Week * The Christian Science Monitor
SELECTED BY HISTORY NEWS NETWORK POLL OF HISTORIANS BEST HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
Book Four of Robert A. Caro's monumental The Years of Lyndon Johnson displays all the narrative energy and illuminating insight that led the Times of London to acclaim it as "one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age. A masterpiece."
The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career-1958 to1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin's bullet to reach its mark.
By 1958, as Johnson began to maneuver for the presidency, he was known as one of the most brilliant politicians of his time, the greatest Senate Leader in our history. But the 1960 nomination would go to the young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Caro gives us an unparalleled account of the machinations behind both the nomination and Kennedy's decision to offer Johnson the vice presidency, revealing the extent of Robert Kennedy's efforts to force Johnson off the ticket. With the consummate skill of a master storyteller, he exposes the savage animosity between Johnson and Kennedy's younger brother, portraying one of America's great political feuds. Yet Robert Kennedy's overt contempt for Johnson was only part of the burden of humiliation and isolation he bore as Vice President. With a singular understanding of Johnson's heart and mind, Caro describes what it was like for this mighty politician to find himself altogether powerless in a world in which power is the crucial commodity.
For the first time, in Caro's breathtakingly vivid narrative, we see the Kennedy assassination through Lyndon Johnson's eyes. We watch Johnson step into the presidency, inheriting a staff fiercely loyal to his slain predecessor; a Congress determined to retain its power over the executive branch; and a nation in shock and mourning. We see how within weeks-grasping the reins of the presidency with supreme mastery-he propels through Congress essential legislation that at the time of Kennedy's death seemed hopelessly logjammed and seizes on a dormant Kennedy program to create the revolutionary War on Poverty. Caro makes clear how the political genius with which Johnson had ruled the Senate now enabled him to make the presidency wholly his own. This was without doubt Johnson's finest hour, before his aspirations and accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam.
In its exploration of this pivotal period in Johnson's life-and in the life of the nation-The Passage of Power is not only the story of how he surmounted unprecedented obstacles in order to fulfill the highest purpose of the presidency but is, as well, a revelation of both the pragmatic potential in the presidency and what can be accomplished when the chief executive has the vision and determination to move beyond the pragmatic and initiate programs designed to transfo
"Brilliant . . . Important . . . Remarkable . . . In sparking detail, Caro shows Johnson's genius for getting to people--friends, foes, and everyone in between--and how he used it to achieve his goals . . .With this fascinating and meticulous account Robert Caro has once again done America a great service."
--President Bill Clinton, "The New York Times Book Review" (front cover)
"By writing the best presidential biography the country has ever seen, Caro has forever changed the way we think, and read, American history . . . Although the amount of research Caro has done for these books is staggering, it's his immense talent as a writer that has made his biography of Johnson one of America's most amazing literary achievements . . . Caro's chronicle is as absorbing as a political thriller . . . There's not a wasted word, not a needless anecdote . . . Most impressively, Caro comes closer than any other historian could to explaining the famously complex LBJ . . . Caro's portrayal of the president is as scrupulously fair as it is passionate and deeply felt . . . The series is a masterpiece, unlike any other work of American history published in the past. It's true that there will never be another Lyndon B. Johnson, but there will never be another Robert A. Caro, either." --Michael Schaub, NPR
"A breathtakingly dramatic story about a pivotal moment in United States history [told] with consummate artistry and ardor . . . It showcases Mr. Caro's masterly gifts as a writer: his propulsive sense of narrative, his talent for enabling readers to see and feel history in the making and his ability to situate his subjects' actions within the context of their times . . . Caro manages to lend even much-chronicled events a punch of tactile immediacy . . . Johnson emerges as both a larger-than-life, Shakespearean personage--with epic ambition and epic flaws--and a more human-scale puzzle . . . Mr. Caro uses his storytelling gifts to turn seemingly arcane legisl
ISBN: 9780679405078
ISBN-10: 0679405070
Audience:
General
Format:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 736
Published: 1st May 2012
Dimensions (cm): 24.2 x 16.8
x 5.6
Weight (kg): 1.252
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