The Path to Power

I had thought that I really wouldn't be interested in reading a biography of LBJ, but undertook this on the recomendation of Peggy and other LT'ers. I'm so glad I did--this book is so much more than LBJ's biography. It's an inciteful political history of the United States in the 20th century which

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presents all the major figures and events in vivid detail. It is also a painful reminder of how little things have changed in the political arena from the 1930's until today.

Path to Power is actually just the first volume of the biography, of which four volumes have been published so far, with a fifth, and presumed final, volume in the works. Path to Power covers LBJ's life from birth to his first Senate race. His parents were idealists, but LBJ's character from a very early age was manipulative. He was always able, as a child and later as an adult, to weasel his way into the good graces of those with more authority or power than himself, whether that be the dean of his college or FDR, the president. At the same time, he was disdainful and demanding of those he considered his underlings. However, despite his difficult personality, he always maintained a cadre of loyalists, and was able to charm the voters.

From very early on, he had a will of steel, and the ability to keep his ultimate plans to himself as he worked toward his goals. As a college student, LBJ was able to manipulate the campus political structure so that he, one of the most disliked students on campus, exerted over it more influence than any other student. Caro sees LBJ at this time as having no core beliefs or principles: "Pragmatism had shaded into the morality of the ballot box, a morality in which nothing matters but victory and any maneuver that leads to victory is justified--into a morality that is amorality." (Does this remind you of anything going on today?) Later of his college years LBJ stated, "It was a pretty vicious operation for a while. They lost everything I could have them lose...I broke their back good. And it stayed broke a good long time." Of this, Caro asks, "Did he not see the ruthlessness? He saw it. Was he ashamed of it? He was proud of it."

These character traits--the need to dominate and to bend others to his will--and his ability to be obsequious with superiors and overbearing with subordinates, appeared early on and were evident throughout LBJ's life.

LBJ first came to Washington, DC as the secretary to a Congressman in 1931 when Hoover was president and the Depression was full-blown. At the time, Congress was in gridlock, and the press referred to the House of Representatives as "The Monkey House". (Hmm--maybe we should revive that name.) Hoover was against government involvement/spending for recovery, and when he began to take action, it was to bail out Wall Street. In December, 1932, after FDR had been elected, but before he was inaugurated, crowds of the jobless marched on the Capital chanting "Feed the hungry. Tax the rich." In Ohio 7000 people converged on the statehouse to establish a farmers' and workers' republic. 4000 people occupied the Nebraska statehouse. 5000 took over the municipal building in Seattle. When a farm was to be foreclosed, neighbors scared prospective bidders away and bought the farm for a dollar and returned it to the original owner. (The 99%? The 'Occupy Wall Street' movement? Is anything new??)

Caro made the Depression real for me in a way that even Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time did not. The descriptions of life on a Texas Dust Bowl farm without electricity were visceral. For these sections alone, this book is well-worth reading. The book is equally fascinating as it dissects FDR's New Deal. The number and scope radical changes FDR was able to push through Congress in his first hundred days were amazing--as was the amount of benefits LBJ was able to divert to his Congressman's constituents. While to the recipients of this largesse, LBJ appeared to be benificient, one of his fellow Congressional secretaries said, "Lyndon Johnson believed in nothing, nothing but his own ambition. Everything he did--everything--was for his ambition."

Even as today we bemoan the Citizens United decision and the rampant influence of money in politics, LBJ's early political life reminds us that money has long played an overly important part in obtaining political power. The book has a detailed history of the inception of Brown and Root, which was a rinky-dink small time company until LBJ's Congressional influence, or perhaps a better word is "finageling", got it a contract to build a dam. LBJ was ever therafter ensured of money from Brown and Root when he needed it. Besides using the money in his own election races, he was able to distribute funds to other politicians, thus indebting them to him.

Caro notes that while LBJ has the reputation of being a legislative genius, during his time in the House of Representatives he actually did little of note--he didn't take positions, he didn't introduce bills, he didn't fight for the legislation of others. Over 11 years in Congress, he made only 10 speeches. However, he had "the power of money." According to Caro, the hallmark of LBJ's political career remained "his lack of a consistent ideology or principle--in fact of any moral foundation whatsoever--a willingness to march with any ally who would help with his personal advancement."

Path to Power ends with LBJ's first Senatorial race. I am so looking forward to the next volume. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

5 stars

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I just finished reading The Path To Power by Robert A. Caro, the first of what is planned to be a five volume biography collectively known as The Years of Lyndon Johnson. For anyone interested in presidential biographies, and American history of the 20th century, this was an incredible book. I saw

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the author on television several weeks ago talking about his latest book The Passage of Power. He was an amazing storyteller, speaking about that fateful day in November 1963 when LBJ was being kept in the dark by the handlers of JFK at Parkside Hospital in Dallas as doctors fought to save Kennedy. I was intrigued, and looked into his latest book. What I found was that it was the fourth book in the series (the third of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography). The reviews of all of the books were extremely positive, so I decided to begin at the beginning. The Path to Power came out in 1982, and told the story of Johnson's early life, up through his failed campaign for U.S. Senate in 1941. The entire book was intriguing and enlightening; but there were certain aspects of the story that I found amazing. In particular, the parallels between the response by business interests to the New Deal, and the current backlash to the stimulus and bank bailouts were eye-opening. I was also astounded at the level of corruption in Texas politics in the early 20th century. If you have an interest in 20th century American history I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Five stars.

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I never expected to be gripped by a political biography in the same way that I sometimes am by a great classic novel.
Johnson's character, as limned by Caro, is Shakespearean. Born it seems with ambition virulent in his soul, bred out of poverty and hardship, Johnson commands the stage from the

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first time we encounter him. His quest for power is single-minded and ruthless. Like MacBeth, he will do whatever is necessary to attain his goal.
It is a measure of Caro's vast talent that he can make Texas politics in the 30s and 40s a gripping story. How Johnson took each step on his "path to power," the betrayals, backroom deals, lies and bribery and oceans of Texas oil money which enable his final ascent to the Presidency are described in living, breathing prose.
To those of us who suffered under his Presidency, this book is an explanation and an indictment of both the man and his policies.
I am going right on to Volume 2!

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In my view, the best and most interesting of the three Caro books on Lyndon B. Johnson. It's in this volume that Caro shows himself to be as good a historian than he is a typical "biographer." I was especially interested in the section on land and politics in the east Texas area where LBJ's family

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lived. I've never read anything like that before!

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This first volume in the not-yet finished full biography of Lyndon Johnson is as much a history of Texas and the hill country as a life of LBJ. Caro excels at portraying life on the Texas frontier as well as what it was like to live on a farm, with no electricity, during the depression. LBJ's early

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years--sometimes you want to kick the crap out of him, other times you can't help but like him--are chronicled in this volume which takes us up to his failed run for US Senate against Pappy O'Daniel in 1942.

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A must read to understand 20th century American History.

Amazing book, first of three. If you want to know how political power is gained and used in the US, you must read this book. All three volumes.

An incredible insight of Lyndon Johnson's rise through Congress. Particularly interesting in the current comparison to Obama's tactics in the 2008 presidential campaign.

biography of Lyndon Johnson - very insightful

One of the most astonishing books I've ever read. No one interested in American politics should fail to read Caro's monumental biography.

Here is not a review, rather only, a comment.

The narrative and research spread out upon these pages is dense and flows freely. Caro's treatment of personality, motivations and human interactions fails to rise with his analysis of the political Johnson, and to his appreciation of the cultural

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Texas, however. Such a situation beckons questions about the audience to whom this book was addressed and the timeliness of its publication.

Where, for example, does a researcher draw the line between personal opinions (which may be on the level of gossip or hearsay) shared by those who are interviewed for a project and the 'concrete,' textual remnants which remain to us? What sort of fissure lies between public and private worlds, if there exists one? Should a biographer confine his or her work, mainly, to one of these? What degree of discernment is required in order for a nuanced and life-like ('accurate'), verbal portrait to be rendered of elders and leaders?

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A narrative masterpiece: the best of the series. No one will fail to notice Caro's bias against his subject, but it's a bias (in this volume anyway) which he seems to have earned. Years after reading the book, I'm still impressed by the depth of his research and his sheer narrative skill in getting

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the absolute feel for Johnson's life, struggle and environment. If you read nothing else, read Chapter 27, "The Sad Irons," an overwhelming account of life in the Texas hill country.

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Biography at its best. I eagerly wait for the second volume.

Here's what I knew about Johnson before reading Caro's book: sworn in as President after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Came into office as the "Great Society" President because he carried Kennedy's platform: he cared about social issues such as education, civil rights and anti-poverty. He

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left office as the "Baby Killer" President because he had led the United States further into the Vietnam war. Here's what stuck with me about President Johnson after reading Caro's first book: Johnson was a pathological liar about his childhood and personal life, was a genius for secrecy, and was a terrible kid growing up. He was constantly disobeying his parents, had no respect for his father, even disliked reading books...that didn't change once he got to college. He continue to lie and manipulate like Othello's Iago throughout his entire life. His hunger for power was displayed in odd ways (like forcing assistants to converse with him while he was on the toilet).

In the very beginning of Path to Power Caro introduces his readers to Hill Country Texas, setting the stage of poverty as the very first driving force behind Johnson's ruthless ambition. Subsequently, every following chapter is scaffolded (my word) by the political and economic climate and influential people of the time. As a result, Path to Power appears to veer off topic from time to time. It also creates a wordiness and heft to the biography that some deem unnecessary.

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Compelling reading. It does leave one feeling a little sorry for the United States as a whole given the level of sleaze and dishonesty catalogued by the author with regards to the highest elective offices in the nation.

One of the best biographies out there, of anyone. Caro is a masterful craftsman.

A story this long—and we're only about one-fifth the way through it—starts to push against the limits of traditional dramaturgy.

What character arcs can hold over 770 pages of careful recounting? Can the story of Lyndon B. Johnson be reduced to man who grew up poor yet found ever greater

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success, whose hunger for bigger arenas outpaced his ability to dominate them?

That summary, though it provides the psychological backbone of Caro's tale, seems to fall short. It falls short both in recounting the man himself and telling the whole story. To understand LBJ, you need to understand not just his cunning, but how he was cunning. You have to see politics as he did: an institution, often corrupt, with untapped potential and unused levers of power that no one could understand. Except, of course, for Lyndon.

And he used those levers. At each stage of the game, Lyndon had the power to see not just what was, but what could be. In college he used it to make campus politics into campus politics, controlling the game through a wholly secret organization that even his opponents didn't know about. As a congressional secretary he turned the office into a well-oiled machine designed to win favor from constituents and outsiders alike—not for the congressman, but for Lyndon. He built the National Youth Administration up in Texas, and as a congressman turned those same skills to use selling New Deal programs to electrify the area and bring the Hill Country into the 20th century. And later, he dramatically amplified the ways money could be used in politics, and used that money to try his hardest to buy the Senate seat in Texas.

In 1941, he would fail, and in 1948 he would succeed. But that's the subject of Caro's next volume, so I'll have to wait and find out.

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This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart. It follows him from the Hill Country to New Deal

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Washington, from his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, at age 31, of the national power for which he hungered. In this book, we are brought as close as we have ever been to a true perception of political genius and the American political process.Means of Ascent, Book Two of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, was a number one national best seller and, like The Path to Power, received the National Book Critics Circle Award.From the Trade Paperback edition.

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This series of biographies about LBJ are both exhaustive and exhausting. Having finally finished listening to this first volume, will give it a ret before proceeding.

Path to Power is the first volume of Robert Caro’s exploration of Lyndon Johnson’s life and rise from a Texas farm boy to President of the United States. This volume, which is one of the longest in the series, follows Johnson from birth to his first, unsuccessful Senate campaign. I found two

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things notable: 1) Caro often doesn’t seem to like his subject very much. While Johnson’s talents are certainly addressed, Caro doesn’t skimp on unflattering anecdotes and qualities, making sure the reader gets the implication that Johnson was a gold digger who annoyed (almost) everyone around him. And, 2) Caro goes on several tangents for whole chapters that, while enlightening, are sometimes of dubious necessity. The best example of this is the 50+ page chapter on the career of Sam Rayburn, one of Johnson’s early mentors and friends. While some context on Rayburn’s career and influence was likely necessary, I found it interesting that Caro chose this figure to devote so much ink to, as opposed to, for example Lady Bird or Klieberg, the Congressman Johnson worked for before beginning his own political career.

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Outstanding scholarship. Riveting narrative. Eye-opening insight on major national figures. Fascinating perspective for current American political dynamics. Looking forward to the next volume on the series, absolutely.

It’s so tempting to read Lyndon as an embodiment of the American century. For starters he’s so fundamentally weird; human only in outward form. The more I learn about America, especially after spending the last 8.5 years there, the weirder it seems, and the same goes for Lyndon. And he’s

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weird in many of the same ways America is weird. He obsesses about size, outcomes, ambition, and his idea of pleasure is sadomasochistic; he’s an unstinting flagellant of himself and others and is never satisfied. And in so many ways he embodies the progress of his country. He weaponises corporate money in politics. He buys up the airwaves and the press. He gives dictation while taking a dump, he feigns sleep if he can’t monopolize the conversation. As Caro notes, he’s someone who “creates politics”, who fosters the unsavoury conditions necessary for his own success.

Another weird thing about America are people’s names. Johnson is obviously not a weird name, although it’s a little odd that he comes from Johnson City. But the supporting cast more than compensate. It was delightful to spend time in the company of characters called Wingate Lucas, Carroll Keach, Everett Looney, Maury Maverick, Wright Patman, Polk Shelton, Clayton Stribling and Harfield Weedin. Pynchon would be proud. And “Path to Power” is as great and grotesquely American as anything by him.

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As with many of these biographies, the author gets a little lost in details- one man's life doesn't need to be 3 volumes!
But it's fascinating to see what politics was like in rural Texas in mid-century.
One amazing thing: usually when an author buries himself in the life of a famous person, he comes

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out defending him/her, or at least ready to see things from the subject's perspective. But Caro's basic take on LBJ is that the guy was a total opportunist, looking to wield power at all costs, with no real political core. This in contrast to much more impressive men (as portrayed in the book) like LBJ's father (a state senator in Texas who never played the game and never cashed in) and Sam Rayburn (a completely incorruptible US House Speaker).
The book is endless, if interesting, so I need some time off before tackling the next one.

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Caro's first book in the definitive biography of LBJ has got me excited for the rest of the series. I hadn't read any history in quite a while, so this was ambitious to jump back into it. Caro is so thoroughly researched, its hard to find fault or doubt with his writing. This book's greatest

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strength is how every major non-LBJ character is given their own mini-biography so that you get to truly understand them and their motivations for how they interact with LBJ. Definitely excited to move on to "Means of Ascent."

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