Product Description

The final volume of Robert Dallek's biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. It takes the reader through Johnson's tumultuous years in the White House, his unprecedented accomplishments there, and the tragic war that would be his downfall. Johnson emerges as a man riddled with contradictions, a man of towering intensity and anguished insecurity, of grandiose ambition and grave self-doubt, a man who was brilliant, crude, intimidating, compassionate, overbearing, driven: "A tornado in pants." Drawing on hundreds of newly released tapes and extensive interviews with those closest to Johnson - including insights from Ladybird and his press secretary Bill Moyers - Dallek takes the reader behind the scenes to provide an intimate portrait of Johnson.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #515820 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 784 pages

About the Author
Robert Dallek is Professor of History at Boston University. He is the author of several books, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, for which he won a Bancroft Prize and was nominated for an American Book Award. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Customer Reviews

Disappointing after a splendid first volume
I strongly preferred Dallek's first volume, Lone Star Rising, over the two Caro books that cover most of the same period, because Dallek presented a detailed and human portrait, while Caro seemed to have so completely turned against his subject he couldn't see anything good about him. So I looked forward to Dallek's treatment of his Vice Presidency and Presidency with as much anticipation as I can recall.

I was frankly disappointed in this volume. The entire Vice Presidency is handled in a single chapter and contains no insight greater than that LBJ was frustrated in the job, hardly a revelation. And the treatment of the Presidency, while providing a good general treatment, gives far less insight into his thinking and the way he made decisions, than the first volume. One can get far more insight from reading Michael Beschloss's edited transcripts in "Taking Charge".

One cogent example: in discussing the reaction to the 1967 Detroit riots, he quotes LBJ reacting to criticism by saying his statement was drafted by the best constitutional lawyer in the U.S. Yet one has to look at the footnotes to discover that this "lawyer" is Abe Fortas, who was then on the Supreme Court. That the president was consulting a justice about a domestic policy statement is an important issue, but one Dallek doesn't bother to tell us about. Yet it is that kind of insight that one looked forward to seeing in this volume. It's a shame it's not there.

Very interesting
I found this very easy to read. It provides a good history of the Johnson administration and covers a good deal more than policy making on Vietnam - the reason why I was initially interested. Details about the space programme, civil rights legislation and LBJ's relationship with his peers (particularly RFK) are some of the other areas that I enjoyed.

It is said that biographies often have the tendency to either canonise or vilify the subject, but this does neither and appears to be largely objective. It is essentially a political history of the administration with LBJ as the focus.

Read if you seek a better understanding of this fascinating period in US history or the decision making process during the early part of the Vietnam war.

A thought provoking study
With the flood of recent material that has become available with the release of the LBJ White House tapes, this is the ideal time to try and re-establsh Johnson's reputation. This book is by no means a whitewash, its handling of Vietnam is rightly critical, but it does seek to provide some balance against many of the accusations that are frequently levelled against Johnson, by the likes of Robert Caro. Some of the lesser, yet significant, Great Society programmes, such as consumer protection legislation and environmental laws, are brought to awareness and the beneficial impact of much of the Great Society legislation and Civil Rights reforms are rightly re-emphasised. The one frustrating fact about this book, is that Robert Dallek leaves an unsatisfactory non-committal conclusion on his view of LBJ. Maybe, for the time being, this is the best option available, but hopefully a more decisive assessment will be possible.