LBJ : A Life

Rating:
Summary: a very complex politician -- a simple man
Review: an excellent biography of the career of LBJ, craftilly weaving between the simple values man and the complex politician. very worthwhile reading

Rating:
Summary: A tolerable one volume, full-life bio.
Review: But not only does this book suffer the fate of any one-volume biography, that of being neccessarily incomplete, but it also is rather sloppily written, at least by the standards of academic works. It has about as many instances of trivial sloppinesses, such as "He tried outfor the baseball team..." or The new student activism was a electric shock..." as I'd expect to see in a mass-market paperback, mistakes which I'm much less willing to accept in a book like this one.

A far superior biography of Johnson can be found in Rober Dallek's two-volume set, "Lone Star Rising" and "Flawed Giant".

Rating:
Summary: Sympathetic but incomplete
Review: If you want a quick, easy read on LBJ and don't want many minute details, this is the book for you. It is written in a breezy and readable style, but the research and footnotes here are haphazard, at best. If you want a more scholarly, reliable look at Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro and Robert Dalleck have written the much superior works.

However, this biography does illuminate LBJ's private life quite well and throws additional light on his complicated relationship with Lady Bird. It is also refreshing to see a sympathetic biography of Johnson, who has been pilloried for Vietnam and never given the credit he deserves as the greatest civil rights President in American history.

This is a good introduction for students of LBJ and will hopefully spur people on to read in greater depth about his flawed giant of a man.

Rating:
Summary: Author has a Bias
Review: On reading a one-volume biography on an individual that had such a long career in public office you know that it is an overview, there is just not the pages to really go through the work he did. If you are interested in LBJ you know that there are any number of books that focus on his decisions with the Viet Nam war and his record on civil rights laws. There may be even a few that talk about his plan to assassinate JFK but they belong with in the fiction section. What this book provides to the reader is a well-documented and constructed book that covers his life. Personally I could have done with less on his life before the age of 18, but that is standard fair for a bio.

The reader gets a good overview of the civil rights battles and laws LBJ fought for and put in place. It covers this section rather well and it left me wondering if maybe the authors focused on this positive aspect of his LBJ's presidency to the detriment of his dealings with the war. To be honest this was the section of the book I was most interested with and felt the authors could have done a better job and provided more detail.

The book is a good overview of LBJ. I felt the authors had a positive view of LBJ and if there were room for maneuver, they would take the road that left him in a more positive light. This is a good, broad review geared for the reader that maybe just starting to look into LBJ or just wants a nice general overview. If this is what you are looking for then this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Author has a Bias
Review: On reading a one-volume biography on an individual that had such a long career in public office you know that it is an overview, there is just not the pages to really go through the work he did. If you are interested in LBJ you know that there are any number of books that focus on his decisions with the Viet Nam war and his record on civil rights laws. There may be even a few that talk about his plan to assassinate JFK but they belong with in the fiction section. What this book provides to the reader is a well-documented and constructed book that covers his life. Personally I could have done with less on his life before the age of 18, but that is standard fair for a bio.

The reader gets a good overview of the civil rights battles and laws LBJ fought for and put in place. It covers this section rather well and it left me wondering if maybe the authors focused on this positive aspect of his LBJ's presidency to the detriment of his dealings with the war. To be honest this was the section of the book I was most interested with and felt the authors could have done a better job and provided more detail.

The book is a good overview of LBJ. I felt the authors had a positive view of LBJ and if there were room for maneuver, they would take the road that left him in a more positive light. This is a good, broad review geared for the reader that maybe just starting to look into LBJ or just wants a nice general overview. If this is what you are looking for then this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: A well written primer
Review: The Ungers have composed a carefully researched, sympathetic and for the most part fascinating primer biography of one of the most demonized President in contemporary history.

What that means is while the Ungers do a fine job defending LBJ from his many attackers by illustrating many of his fine political gifts and successes, the entire book appears somewhat abridged.

The Ungers frequently hint at Johnson's warts and missteps, but never do they fully explore and expand. This is not to suggest that dirt digging would a better book make, simply that bringing such points up need, I feel fleshing out. Unlike McCullough, Amrose and Ellis, the Ungers aren't quite as successful as building, in a one volume form, the broader historical and cultural spectrum for LBJ. The book certainly needs a touch of "the bigger picture".

This criticism aside, LBJ certainly works as a fine introduction to a complex man who was a gifted politician who possessed an uncanny ability to forge bipartisian coalitions to pass a great many pieces of legislation. Were it not for the inherited morass of Vietnam, the Ungers suggest that history could have been much kinder to the man from Texas.

The LBJ as portrayed in this book is a driven man plagued by many contradictions, least of all his oscillation between depression and doubt and victory and satisfaction.

LBJ as book, despite its overall "Reader's Digest" feel, does introduce Johnson to a new generation. A solid read.

Rating:
Summary: Definitive One-Volume Biography of LBJ
Review: This is an excellent biography. As an avid presidential history buff, I was fairly familiar with Lyndon Johnson's accomplishments as President. I was surprised to learn, however, Johnson's rise from freshman Congressman from rural Texas to Majority leader in an amazingly short amount of time. He was the towering figure in the Senate in the 1950's and accomlished much, even though the Democrats were in the minority during most of the Eisenhower years. LBJ was able to get votes where others couldn't by the sheer force of his personality. His ability to work with the members on the opposite side of the aisle should be emulated by most of today's politicians, who put partisan politics above what is best for the country.

Irwin and Debi Unger do an excellent job of trying to explain what drove LBJ. His rural background gave him an inferiority complex that caused him to work harder and longer than everyone else to get things done. It also made him feel that the public never fully appreciated his service to the country, especially after rising to the Presidency because of the assassination of JFK, a beloved figure.

If not for his ill-advised Vietnam polcies, however, I believe Johnson would have been re-elected in 1968 and would have been remembered as one of our great Presidents. Overall, an excellent read for both admirers and critics of LBJ.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and fair analysis of an overlooked political giant
Review: What a treat it was to read a one-volume biography of Johnson which included just enough detail to give you a complete, colorful picture of his entry into politics, his ascendency in Congress, and his almost-brilliant Presidency! Unger focuses on LBJs childhood and relationship with his mother to set the table for the glaringly apparent psychological handicaps (insecurity, need for adulation)that held him back from greatness later in life. Reading about his years as a Congressional aide conjures up images of an innocent, pre World War II Washington DC where a young man could come from the dust bowl of Texas and seize the reigns of power. The story of LBJ's first, breathtaking campaign for Congress is memorable, as is the well-narrated U.S. Senate race a few years later, giving us insight into the complexities of the Texas Democratic Party of the 1940s. The reader rises along with LBJ through the U.S. Senate into his role as Majority Leader, and his fateful decision to seek the 1960 Presidential nomination (while avoiding the primaries) and his decision to run with JFK that year. Unger paints a picture of Johnson as a man with boundless energy and drive, who was instrumental in some of the great New Deal programs, which set the stage for the slew Great Society legislation he got passed in 1964 and 1965. When the book has you at the height of his Presidency, getting everything he wants from Congress, mastering his relations with the House and Senate in a way no President has been able to approach since him, with a booming economy and feeling on the verge of breakthroughs in civil rights, poverty, housing, environment and urban renewal, the ugliness of the war in Vietnam creeps in and you can actually feel the presidency weakening, the country dividing, and LBJ losing his place in history as some one who worked harder for minorities, women and the poor than perhaps every other President combined (if it sounds like idolotry, just read what he did!) The difficulties in Vietnam, and the agonizing decision over whether to run in 1968, while desperately trying to make a breakthrough in the peace process in Vietnam (all the while escalating the war and sending more troops just to preserve the status quo!)and Johnson's unseemly poutiness which perhaps cost Humphrey the 68 election to Nixon, all paint an objective portrait of LBJ as a man who basked in greatness and suffered in defeat, and one who demanded unrealistic loyalty from all those around him but showed little in return at times. He dies just 4 years after leaving the White House and it is sobering to read how he spent those years attempting to repair his image and remain relevant. This book was a great read for anyone interested in learning what is actually a history of our government from World War II into the 1970s. You finish the book feeling that Vietnam truly robbed Johnson of what would otherwise have been a brilliant presidency, and hoping that future historians will see his near-greatness.