the years of lyndon johnson means of ascent

Entire chapters, long chapters mind you, are dedicated to providing supplements of knowledge to fully allow the reader to understand Johnson’s actions and their consequences. What makes Caro such a successful, if painfully slow, writer of biography and history is his fundamental understanding of consequence and the need to fully explain the conditions and actions that preceded and followed any given consequence. I think of them as studies in political power” As Caro himself described his work, “ I never had any interest in telling the life of a great man. Caro has dedicated his life to writing about just two men and their taste for, acquisition of, and use of power Robert Moses and Lyndon B Johnson. Volume I of The Years of Lyndon Johnson was published in 1982, so it has been over 40 years of Caro’s life that he’s dedicated to researching and writing about Lyndon Johnson, and it this total dedication to the biographical process which is what drew me to these books, rather than an initial interest in Johnson. Nearly half the book is dedicated to the 1948 campaign, in part because it was a turning point in Johnson’s career and because during his eleven years as congressman for Texas’ 10th district, he barely did anything of note beyond his perfunctory duties and his dwindling political influence following the death of President Roosevelt cast serious doubts on his political future. Means of Ascent covers a seven year period of Johnson’s life following his defeat in the 1941 Texas Senate campaign to Wilbert ‘Pappy’ O’Daniel, to his eventual victory in the 1948 senate campaign against former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, a man known then as ‘Mr Texas’.

The years of lyndon johnson means of ascent