Rating: 
Summary: Lengthy and DEEP! in Detail
Review: LBJ: "Means of Ascent" is a story narrower in scope than may be initially apparent. It only spans the 1940s but within this limited time frame, there are several high points. Key among them are LBJ's losing effort for the US Senate in 1941 and his highly controversial-and successful- race for a similar seat in 1948. The author leaves little doubt that vote rigging decided both contests. The 1948 campaign is examined at extensive-and excessive- extent. In fact, all of MOA is deep in detail! Author Caro hammers away at how hard LBJ drove himself that year as the candidate skips around the vast stretches of Texas by helicopter. The author's admiration for LBJ's worthy opponent, Governor Coke Stevenson is crystal clear. Stevenson is depicted as a "gentleman of the old school" (this reviewer's words). LBJ is portrayed as a brash upstart-with his expensive chopper flights, mass mailings, radio advertisements, corporate fat cat financial support (most notably the Brown and Root Company), and "help" from venal local officials in Southeast Texas. Coke Stevenson a.k.a. "Mister Texas" almost emerges as the hero of the book! Caro also manages to cover Johnson"s ill treatment of his wife, Lady Bird, and his "questionable" attainment of a quick fortune in ownership of Texas radio stations. More space is devoted to LBJs egregious exaggeration of his "War record" and the flaunting of the Silver Star he was hastily awarded but did not deserve. MOA is no paean to Johnson but is well researched. Its authenticity is immediately obvious but the sheer volume is a detraction. MOA could have been truncated. Given the enormous amounts of time Caro has devoted to his subject, the author should be forgiven for his pedantic style. The question here is why the author has devoted so much of his career to a trilogy, perhaps a four part series, to a former President he does NOT admire? If one includes the "Power Broker", then it appears Caro has spent his past 30 years on bios of powerful people he doesn?t care much for! If MOA has a weakness apart from the length, it is the following: At the conclusion this reader had no further understanding of Johnson -the man- than at the start. If it has a strong point, it is this: LBJ was the man my generation loved to hate. I believe I can see why! Now, how about a book on Coke Stevenson!
Rating: 
Summary: Can't wait for the movie . . .
Review: This volume describes characters and action that will make a wonderful movie some day. The helicopter campaign alone would fill the screen with action for hours. Well done.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not that good
Review: The second installment of The Years of Lyndon Johnson disappoints. While a good book in it's own right, it cannot compare with Path to Power. In an effort to show how manipulative Johnson could be, Caro comes across as hating him, and ends up portraying Governor Stevenson as a lefty Populist, out to save the world from an evil Lyndon Johnson. Worth reading, but dosen't compare to Path to Power, or Master of the Senate.
Rating: 
Summary: Weird
Review: Robert Caro has spent some 20 years of his life writing a four volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. This is weird as Caro seems to dislike him intensely. The first volume in the series was one of the amore amusing books around. It highlited in detail every negative aspect of Johnsons life focusing on minute detail including what he called his penis.The second volume covers a seven year period from his failure to win election to the senate in 41 to his tainted victory in 48. The climax if it can be called that is a dramatic description of that election. Caro talks up Johnson's opponent Colk Stevenson into a person of folk hero status. The reality seems to be a bit less than that as Stevenson was a reasonably conservative segregationist. Caro somehow sees it as a sort of morality play with Johnson representing evil winning the election by a bit of old fashion vote riging. Despite all this the book is entertaining. The description of life in Texas before the coming of electricity alone is worth the price of the book. However reading it one ponders the question why Caro has spent so much time on a person he despises as much as he does.
Rating:
Summary: Don't read this if you want to remain a political optimist
Review: I was a little disappointed when I discovered that this book covers only 7 years of Johnson's life. However, as it turns out, the central episode of this book (LBJ's 1948 Senate race against Coke Stevenson) is well deserving of a full-length treatment. The book stands on its own as a story of a remarkable election -- and the pivotal election in LBJ's career. And, like Caro's other books, it's researched to the point of obsessiveness and written in a compelling, brilliant style. In particular, the introduction is a masterful summary of the is a masterful summary of the hopes, fears, and expectations of the country as it looked toward its president during the civil rights era. I can't wait to read volume 3!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic -- a must read
Review: Anyone interested in the history of US Politics must read this book. It tells the true story of Lyndon Johnson's role in the Second World War. It also discusses Johnson's hatred of the House of Representatives. It is too big. It is, as Caro puts it, "too slow," for Johnson. The only way to get power in the House is to wait. Johnson, impatient and itching for real power, has none. Sitting in the Naval Affairs committee, ruled by Dictator Vinson, Johnson has no power. He would have to wait many, many years until he would possibly, if at all, reach the chairmanship. Handicapped by ancestral health problems (Johnson men died in their 60's), he realizes this path is "too slow". Having lost the Senate race in 1941 to W. Lee (Pappy) O'Daniel, he gives it another shot in '48. O' Daniel is not running because of the mockery he made of himself in Washington. Even worse, Coke Stevenson, a Texas Legend runs. In perhaps the most monumental and competitive political race in the history of Texas, Johnson wins by a mere 48 votes, but not after a investigation into those votes and a legal battle. You cannot miss the story of this election. I flew throught the book, and you will too. With absolutely impeccable prose and style, Caro does it again with Means of Ascent.
Rating:
Summary: A book as big as its subject and the Lone Star State
Review: I first heard of this book last year (2001), when the Sunday Times of London asked William Hague, former chief of the UK Conservative Party, which book would he take to a desert island. At the time Hague was licking his wounds after having been mauled in Parliamentary elections, and was forced to step down as Party Leader. He was defeated by one of the most brilliant and ruthless political operators this country has known since the days of Baroness Thatcher, Tony Blair. Having seen the book in a used-book shop I decided to pick it up in spite of its heft. I wasn't disappointed. I read the book very quickly, and understood why Hague had been so impressed by it. It covers a period in which nothing much was happening in LBJs life. After a hard early life (LBJ's father, a political idealist, was bankrupted due to bad investments, and his children became paupers almost overnight) Johnson was able to parlay his inexhaustible energy, his sharp mind and tart tongue, and his strong personality into a sucessful political career. Having reached the House of Representatives he found himself stuck there, bored, blocked by the seniority system which would take him his whole life to overcome. Johnson was always looking to the White House, and he knew that in order to make the jump from Texas state politics to the nationals he needed to be elected senator. The book's main set-piece is a wonderful day-by-day description of the 1948 senatorial election that pitted Johnson against a legend of an older time, former governor Coke Stevenson. Much has been said about Stevenson, including that he was a racist, and that he cheated as much as Johnson ever did. Be that as it may, it seems well-proven that Stevenson was indeed a much-larger-than-life compendium of old-fashioned Western virtues. He was laconic. He was frugal. He was hard-working. He always kept his word, even when doing so was physically dangerous for him (no one could accuse Johnson of being a brave man, neither as a student nor as an adult). He had a lean, weather beaten face that reminded me of Clint Eastwood in his more recent Western, The Unforgiven. Stevenson's allies may have cheated in their own districts, but it is clear from Caro's research that Johnson won the election only because of very clear and fairly inept fraud in South Western Texas, the kingdom of the Duke of Duvall (a corrupt local politician out of Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men" who used patronage and corruption to maintain power for decades). One of the perpetrators came forward and admitted it to Caro many years later, and there is a wonderful picture of some of the Duke of Duvall's men posing with a missing ballot-box. Some of these men would have looked just fine at the side of Boss Hogg in the Old "Dukes of Hazzard" TV show. Even more interesting than the actual cheating and the hear-stopping climax, which Caro manages to make exciting even though we know Johnson wins in the end, is the wonderful sense of an era re-created. Caro brings to life the dusty towns, the heat, the working women and men, with no electricity, who eagerly listen to the candidates hoping for action that might improve their lives. Another point concerns the clash between new and old ways of doing things. Johnson represented the "new" politics, that currently dominates the landscape not just in the US. In this approach, the candidate is a product, slickly packaged, supported by carefully controlled media disclosures and eye-catching stunts, such as using a helicopter to tour the State. Stevenson is politics as it was, where the candidate campaigned on his character, campaign meetings were an opportunity for the electors to meet the candidate, and an appeal was made to the electors' good sense rather than their love of gimmicks. Obviously, the Johnson-Stevenson clash could not but appeal to William Hague, after having been trounced by the most successful practitioner of "new" politics in the UK, Tony Blair. Although the heart of the book is the 1948 election, Caro reveals much about Johnson's military service and business activities. Johnson saw little or no military action and in fact spent most of his time in service touring defence facilities in the West, which left him enough time to buy clothing and socialize. A single sortie in a fighter plane in the Pacific was enough to get him a decoration from General MacArthur, and he embellished his brief contact with the troops in ways that could sicken those with weak stomachs. And this is another important point. Johnson was shameless, and apparently believed his own lies at the time he told them. He was astonished whenever he found out that others weren't fooled. And the description of the way he built his media empire (when he became President he was a rich man, perhaps the richest to occupy the post) is also illustrative of the many opportunities that state patronage gives to the unscrupulous to better their lot with little risk. While this is clearly not a pretty picture, I don't believe that Johnson comes out mainly as a villain. It is unavoidable that an intelligent, ambicious, energetic young man should use all his powers to achieve his goals. And he wasn't the worst of the lot. Many deals were proposed to him that he turned down, whether on ethical grounds or to avoid damage to his reputation. Many succcesful political figures were as bullying as Johnson (Teddy Roosevelt and W. S. Churchill come to mind), and others were as economical with the truth as he was (Richard Nixon and Tony Blair come to mind). Many leaders, whether in academia, or in business, or in politics, tend to overstate their own merits and downplay their failures. Johnson's main flaw is that he was more human than the rest. While not admirable, this is surely something that we can understand.
Rating:
Summary: hardly dimpled chads
Review: I have not read Vols. 1 or 3 (recently published) in this epic biography of LBJ. However, Caro has structured the series in such a way that each volume can stand on its own. This volume could be described as the House years of LBJ. Congress is somewhat of a federal backwater ruled by seniority and committee chairmanship. LBJ is a hanger-on to fellow Texan and Speaker Sam Rayburn. FDR sees his potential and befriends him. LBJ is bored. He needs to be in the Senate to exercise power. He is severely inconvenienced by WW2. However, as a patriotic Congressman, he joins the Navy and patrols the U.S. West Coast in a pullman car, single-handedly shooting down 26 Japanese submarines. Later, he flies the Enola Gay to Hiroshima after first capturing Herman Goering in hand-to-hand combat on the streets of Stalingrad. LBJ is a war hero, but it still won't get him in the Senate. LBJ turns to money-making to deal with his frustration. An 'independent' in politics (out for himself first and foremost), LBJ sees value being waterboy for Brown and Root (predecessor to today's Halliburton). Revealing peculiar genius in twisting federal regulation to line his pocket, LBJ becomes rich. But it's power he really wants. To get into the Senate, he must face a genuine Texas legend, Coke Stevenson. It's a shoot-out at the OK corral. Here, Caro gives us Texas in all her glory. This is a great story. You learn about the Texan psychology, their deliberately weak Governorship, their pride in their history. The election is stolen by LBJ. It's new media politics vs. old courthouse politics. Money is involved, and the backdrop is the first major political realignment since the New Deal. All the partisan talk of the "stealing" of the 2000 Presidential election pales in comparison to this real political chicanery. It's like comparing a fudged 1040 deduction to an armed Brink's truck robbery. LBJ comes across as a dynamo if not a statesman. Lady Bird is portrayed as a fine person, showing the grace which she would need later in the White House, married to the inventor of Credibility Gap. John Connally makes an appearance as Greek chorus (?) or perhaps King Lear's France (?). LBJ took a stand against racism as President. His rise to power shows that black and white always ends up a sorta dirty gray.
Rating:
Summary: Caro is right on the mark...
Review: With the release in April 2002 of "Master of the Senate" - Caro's 3rd volume of his epic 4 volume study of Lyndon Johnson, we can finally see "Means of Ascent" - his controversial 2nd volume, in its' true context. When Robert Caro started researching this biography of LBJ more than a quarter-century ago, he went far beyond what most biographers and historians do in examining his subject. He literally spent years living in the isolated Texas Hill Country where Johnson was born and raised, and in the process he acquired a level of knowledge about LBJ's life that makes other biographies of the man pale in comparison. So thorough was Caro's research that even his critics - historians such as Robert Dallek, who complained that Caro was being too harsh in his "interpretation" of LBJ's character and rise to power - didn't dare dispute Caro's findings or research. When "Means of Ascent" was published, the chorus of critics grew even louder. They complained that Caro was "hopelessly biased" against Johnson, and that he had made LBJ the "villain" of his story - even while he made a "hero" out of Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, LBJ's opponent in the fiercely contested 1948 US Senate election. Many of Caro's critics pointed out that Stevenson was a segregationist - yet they failed to mention that Johnson was also a segregationist at that point in his career. Additionally, Caro's critics also claimed that even if LBJ "stole" the 1948 Senate election, it was "justified" because of what Johnson later did for civil rights and other liberal causes in the Senate and Presidency. Given that we live in a democracy where the "people" are supposed to rule, this is indeed a strange argument! "Means of Ascent" focuses upon what Caro calls the "worst years" of LBJ's political career - the 7 years from 1941, when Johnson narrowly lost a Senate race due to vote-fraud by his opponent - to 1948, when Johnson wins an even closer race for the Senate by doing some vote-stealing himself. During these years all of Johnson's "darker" sides were on display, and few of the "better" aspects of his personality managed to surface. After promising his supporters to resign as a Congressman and serve in the military when World War Two begins, LBJ then tries desperately to avoid military service. When he is finally forced to serve, he makes sure to land a job as an intelligence officer well away from the front lines. He finally does agree to go on a single bombing mission over a Japanese base, sees fifteen minutes of combat - and is promptly awarded the Silver Star, the US Army's 3rd-highest medal. After returning to Congress, he uses his political connections to arrange some rather unethical business deals that transform him from being literally "dirt poor" to a multimillionaire in just a few years! However, most of "Means of Ascent" is taken up with describing the epic 1948 US Senate race. The heavily favored candidate was Coke Stevenson, the reserved, pipe-smoking, and extremely popular "Cowboy Governor" of Texas. Stevenson still holds the record of being the ONLY Texas politician to carry all of Texas' counties in an election, and his popularity was so great that he was nicknamed "Mister Texas". Caro doesn't shy away from pointing out that Stevenson was a segregationist and a small-government conservative who believed in low taxes and few public services - but he also points out that these stands were highly popular with most Texas voters. Lyndon Johnson, desperate to escape his "dead end" role as a junior Congressman, challenges Stevenson in the biggest gamble of his career. Caro brilliantly describes the contrast between the older Stevenson - a genuine laconic cowboy right out of a Gary Cooper or John Wayne western, a man who campaigns the "old-fashioned" way by leisurely driving from one small Texas town to the next and shaking hands on courthouse squares - and Lyndon Johnson, a young man of frantic energy and determination who used a helicopter (just being introduced in 1948) to fly from one town to the next. Johnson would fly over the town's main street, lean out of the cockpit with a bullhorn to attract a crowd, and would then land (sometimes on the street) and give his speech. Campaiging himself to total exhaustion and driving his staff mercilessly, LBJ steadily gains on Stevenson as election day approaches. Yet, (as Caro clearly shows) LBJ's efforts still weren't enough - as Stevenson "wins" the race by less than 200 votes. However, almost a week after the election, the notorious George Parr - the corrupt and brutal "boss" of Duval County along the Mexican border in south Texas - suddenly reports a "corrected" list of votes from precinct 13. Johnson gains 202 votes and pulls ahead. Convinced that the election has been stolen - Stevenson and a close friend, legendary Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, travel to the town of Alice and insist upon looking at the list of voters from precinct 13. According to eyewitnesses, the list clearly had 200+ names added - in a different-colored ink and in alphabetical order - at the bottom. With this evidence Stevenson attempts to challenge LBJ's "victory" in court, but Johnson uses his political contacts in Washington - and a brilliant lawyer named Abe Fortas - to get the hearing stopped just before the judge made a ruling (the judge later said he would have ruled in Stevenson's favor). And so - by the highly tainted margin of 87 votes - Lyndon Johnson goes to the US Senate. This victory would haunt the rest of LBJ's political career, and even many of Johnson's admirers admit that it cast doubt over whether Johnson should ever have been a Senator - or President of the United States. Given the overwhelming evidence Caro presents, there's no doubt that the "wrong man" won the 1948 Senate race (at one point Caro shows a photo of Parr's cronies standing around the Precinct 13 voting box, and they're all grinning. President Johnson kept the photo hidden in a White House closet). Yet despite Johnson's attempts to keep the real story of the 1948 race hidden from the public, Robert Caro discovered the truth and has given us an unforgettable description of an election that reads like a real-life soap opera and morality tale. Superb!
Rating:
Summary: Some are missing the point
Review: I admit that unlike many of the reviewers that I'm not an avid reader. I go through phases. I have been enthralled by the series of biographies by Robert A. Caro. I have lived, travelled and working in and around many of the areas that are part of these books. "Means of Ascent" is a very apt title for this particular volume. LBJ's drive to achieve his goal, regardless of the means. Being a Texan I have grown up with stories, and ancedotes about LBJ. Some called him a crook, etc. If you remove your biases and see LBJ for who he is, where he came from, and where his ambitions led. You can clearly see the driving forces that propelled him to the devices he used. I look forward to additional works by Mr. Caro. He has taken the biography away from a dry chronilogical glimpse into the life a person and transformed it into a moving portrait of the life, times, and people that shaped and were instrumental in that life.
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