A devastating study that warrants the broadest readership. In short, naval service was a box for Johnson to check off as a part of his career plan. Explosive . Every villain, it seems, requires a hero. He focuses closely not only on Johnson, whom we see harnessing every last particle of his strategic brilliance and energy, but on Johnson’s “unbeatable” opponent, the beloved former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, who embodied in his own life the myth of the cowboy knight and was himself a legend for his unfaltering integrity. www.bestpresidentialbios.com. [He has a] marvelous ability to tell a story . Looking forward to what you think. Individual sentences often read as though they were authored by Charles Dickens…but with even more punch. I’d be surprised if Vol. The story of that election has all the excitement of a murder mystery in which the culprit is known, but the question is whether justice will triumph. “Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson” is the second volume in Robert Caro’s series covering the life of Lyndon B. Johnson. Caro has at last set the record straight.” —Richard Marius, Harvard Magazine, “Extraordinary and brilliant . Paul Star Tribune, “A great book, and I believe the completed biography will be the great book about American politics in the twentieth century. Bestpresidentialbios.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Here’s hoping the last book is finished soon-ish. It’s a testament to Robert Caro’s skill that we find it so difficult to get a firm moral fix on Johnson. . How to use ascent in a sentence. That being said, the weakest in this series is still better than most political biographies. Thanks – I feel compelled to take a look even though – as you say – VPs are seldom able to make much of a mark. Caro’s prodigious research, and his discovery of original sources ignored by other biographers, proves beyond doubt that much of what Johnson said about these years was false . . It all came down to box 13, which Luis Salinas admitted to stuffing in the 1980's. . In Means of Ascent he intensifies the flame to a brilliant blue point.” —Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, “Brilliant. Where the first volume systematically develops a case against LBJ, this volume feels like a blistering, non-stop critique of nearly every aspect of his character. oneobservatorycircle.com for the info. . Above all, it is a richly textured, multilayered chronicle of a fundamental social and political change and how this change highlighted elements of Mr. Johnson’s character: his powerful needs, tremendous ambition and particular genius.” —Robert A. Kronley, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution The race ended in a virtual tie and Stevenson demanded and received a recount. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! It’s 5 stars in my book, but your justifications for its faults are well argued and insightful. Telling that epic story “in riveting and eye-opening detail,” Caro returns to the American consciousness a magnificent lost hero. ( Log Out /  Master of the Senate is fantastic, and really the highlight of the LBJ books, although Passage of Power is a strong entry as well. And if Johnson is – in the eyes of some – this volume’s controversial antagonist, Stevenson is its strangely flawless luminary. Johnson ran as a semi-liberal New Dealer against former Texas Governor and Conservative Democratic icon, Coke Stevenson. Caro burns into the reader’s imagination the story of the [1948 Senate] election. Readers are in for a white-knuckle, hair-raising tale that could have ended in any of a dozen ways, with L.B.J. Riveting drama.” —Jim Finley, Los Angeles Times, “The most compelling study of American political power and corruption since Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men . in the White House the longest shot of all. . . In Means of Ascent, Book Two of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro brings alive Lyndon Johnson in his wilderness years. unputdownable. I’m getting started on Volume 3 tonight – I can’t wait to see what Caro has in store for the next 1,040 pages! . . This multifaceted book carries the President-to-be from the aftermath of his devastating defeat in his 1941 campaign for the Senate-the despair it engendered in him, and the grueling test of his spirit that followed as political doors slammed shut-through his service in World War II (and his artful embellishment of his record) to the foundation of his fortune (and the actual facts behind the myth he created about it). This is followed by LBJ’s purchase of a Texas radio station which eventually proved no less contentious. Also feel Caro is appropriately harsh on LBJ; for me, LBJ is a fascinating subject. Robert Caro Booklist Robert Caro Message Board. — 123,546 pages, Mar 2019 – Also familiar: his use of captivating mini-biographies to introduce important supporting characters. But there are others who also receive interesting, if less extensive, treatment such as George Parr and Frank Hamer. Having immersed himself in Johnson’s life and world, Caro is able to reveal the true story of the fiercely contested 1948 senatorial election, for years shrouded in rumor, which Johnson was not believed capable of winning, which he “had to” win or face certain political death, and which he did win-by 87 votes, the “87 votes that changed history.”. Caro’s writing style in this volume is strikingly similar to his prose of the first volume: it is neither elegant nor flowery, but is packed with intensity and a clever, if slightly unwieldy, bent. It’s fascinating to watch VPs transition to being President (LBJ and TR come to mind for me immediately). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. . The most important of these introductions is aimed at Coke Stevenson (Johnson’s primary opponent in his 1948 Senate bid) who receives an entire chapter – much like Sam Rayburn in the previous volume.

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