Robert A. Caro

Traces Johnson's life from his Texas childhood through his rise to political power and his successful 1948 senatorial campaign and eventual presidency.

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Johnson vs. Kennedy : 1960. The prediction

Patrick Book

The elegance and mastery of Caro’s research and his economic, thorough, and terrifically-paced writing cannot be paralleled. A truly remarkable explainer of a complicated and craven subject.

Jeremy Anderberg

Volume one of The Years of Lyndon Johnson was published in 1982, spans 768 pages, and covers Lyndon's genealogy, childhood, and first few years as a Congressman.

The first part is really a history of the West Texas landscape itself. (I learned more about Texan soil than I ever thought I would.) Lyndon's childhood was not a particularly pleasant one. The Johnsons were desperately poor, largely because of bad real estate investments. And yet, Lyndon found his way to a local college and graduated with a teaching certificate, acquiring a love for politics (and power) along the way.

He taught for a little while, but ultimately came to believe that life in rural Texas wasn't going to be enough for him, so he ended up in Washington, DC as a Congressman's aide. There, he displayed a knack for getting things done and for understanding the way things worked in politics. So when a House seat opened up in Texas in 1937, LBJ won the election at just 28 years old. In a couple short years, he befriended some of Washington's most important figures, including Sam Rayburn and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Caro makes the convincing case that Lyndon's life was basically a single-minded pursuit of power. He wanted to be in charge, no matter the costs. He paints a picture of a man with basically no conscience and no regard for right or wrong when it came to gaining that power. So, of course, being a Congressman wasn't enough. Next up: the Senate.

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Johnson vs. Kennedy : 1960. The prediction

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