Rating: 
Summary: Brilliantly written, but....
Review: ...and this is a big "but." Caro verges on the hatchet job in volume two. He is a brilliant writer and his research methods are precise and methodical. But his take on LBJ here is overly negative, he always sees the worst case scenario and it winds up being hard to swallow, even if you detest Lyndon Johnson. He damns Johnson for stealing elections, when anyone else worth their salt in Texas in the 30's and 40's did the same thing. John Connelly ultimately refused further interviews with Caro because he felt this book was too brutally negative and I concur. So why the five stars?Because Caro is such an outstanding writer, he turns history into literature. His way with words is leagues ahead of other historical biographers, he writes with the flair of a novelist but he backs up his words with years of dilligent research. What other biographer pulls up stakes and lives for *five years* in the Texas hill country in order to better understand his subject? This first volume stands at the pinnacle of the biographical art, the second volume is slightly less convincing and a great deal more negative. Many have criticized Caro (Lady Bird and Connelly most vociferously) for being overly critical of Johnson. I share this concern and feel he sometimes bends over backwards to "stick it to" Johnson. Caro has said repeatedly that he will deal with LBJ's Presidency with a more charitible outlook and this is to be hoped. I am an unabashed fan of Lyndon Johnson and this will stand as the definitive biography of him for many years. Though it's caustic and critical, it's so beautifully written you can read it again and again. A masterpiece of biography and I can't wait for the third volume. Hopefully, that will be more forgiving of LBJ.
Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding and Spectacular
Review: After having read Robert Caro's Path to Power, the first volume of his monumental trilogy on the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson, I came away with the feeling that although Johnson was an utter scoundrel, he had a few redeeming qualities. Now that I've read Path to Power, any redemption Johnson had earned in my eyes has been stripped away.
In this volume, Caro lays bare once and for all the evidence that anyone of any political stripe should need to discover that Johnson was driven solely by naked ambition and was utterly bereft of principle or scruple. No one or nothing was sacred if it stood between him and the power he craved.
In his losing 1941 Senate race against the charlatan Pappy O'Daniel, Johnson ran on a platform of Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Roosevelt. He made a public show in Washington of being one of FDR's most devoted lickspittles. Yet behind the scenes, he made deals with some of the most anti-Roosevelt money men in Texas and was able to convince them that he was really a conservative. Johnson narrowly lost that election and the lesson learned was that he had to steal more votes than he supposed his opponent to have stolen and then not have them counted until after the "last" votes were in.
Reading between the lines, I can guess that FDR was finally on to him as Truman certainly was.
Then there was the matter of his "heroic" war record. Even today when a candidate's claims are so much easier to check for veracity we have those who brazenly lie a la LBJ about their wartime service.
LBJ comes off at his worst during the 1948 Democratic Senatorial primary in which he and his minions stole the election from former Governor Coke Stevenson by arranging the stuffing of ballot boxes and in some cases, paying voters to vote for Johnson. When the "results" were contested by Stevenson, Johnson and his legal team lied and cheated their way through the system all the way to using a Supreme Court Justice to install Johnson as the official Democratic candidate for the US Senate.
A few people come off as heroes: Coke Stevenson himself, Circuit Court Judge T Whitfield Davidson, Federal Master in Chancery William R Smith and a handful of reformers in Jim Wells County and other South Texas counties who had the real courage to stand up to jefe George Parr, his enforcers and his pistoleros. Others include the very brave indeed Mexican-American residents of those counties who were willing to publicly testify that though they were counted as having voted, they had in fact not voted at all or had voted for Stevenson.
Besides those whom the reader would expect to be slimeballs, Abe Fortas, Tom Clark,and Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black emerge from the sordid affair bathed in the stench of corruption.
Although its obvious that the author is developing an increasing distatse for Johnson, he does not neglect showing the shrewd and forward looking side of the man. Johnson proves himself many times to be a keen reader of men and part of his political success stems from his ability to make snap decisions on what is and isn't going to work as far as campaigning goes. The story of his brilliant strategy of barnstorming the state by helicopter as his better known and hugely popular opponent Coke Stevenson slogs along county by county the old fashioned way is one of the high points of the book.
It was that modern and then novel approach, coupled with his use of polling, vicious ad hominem attacks on Stevenson and mass mailings thinly disguised as newspapers that put Johnson in the position that stealing a few thousand votes could win the election for him. At the beginning of the campaign, almost no one outside his camp thought he had a chance of winning.
I recommend this spellbinding and spectacular book to anyone interested in politics. Its a reminder to all of us how ignoble the quest for office can be, and a warning to all of us that we must constantly be on guard to ensure the fairness and sanctity of the principle of one man, one vote.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT WORK - WITH RESERVATIONS
Review: As with his first volume, "The Path to Power," Mr. Caro contues this wonderful work on Lyndon B. Johnson. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I feel that this volume, and this part of Johnson's life were quite important...it defines Johnson in his future years. We must take a close look at a man who is down and out, a non-winner, in order to understand the complete man. My reservations with this work come in, in that I feel Caro possible had some sort of axe to grind here and perhaps went a bit over the top is his assessment of Johnson during those years. I grant you, Johnson was probably not the nicest of men, not someone I probably would have liked in person, but Caro almost becomes manic with his digs. On the other hand, the work, Caro's, is brilliant and continues to be the best of the LBJ Biographies. His research is wonderful, and I found, once started, the books was difficult to lay down. I highly recommend this one.
Rating:
Summary: Terrifying
Review: Caro is a superb writer and this book reads like gangbusters. Johnson does not come out of this looking that good, but Caro builds the stakes for Johnson so well that we wind up rooting for him. A phenomenal read. This book stays fairly tightly focused on Johnson and his opponent in the '48 Senate race, so it is not as satisfying as Master of the Senate, but it is a masterful book. There are also, if you care to see them, blood-curdling similarities between Johnson and W Bush: both were/are run by Brown & Root, and they both used the SAME legal tactics to steal their most important elections. Both men wanted desperately to avoid a recount in contested areas (Johnson because he so flagrantly broke the law, Bush because he feared that he would be exposed as the loser [or, if you are conspiracy-minded, he feared that his manipulation of the law through his Campaign Head, Florida Sec. of State Harris, would be exposed]) and both men used the same legal path to avoid one. This is terrifying stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Optional Reading in the LBJ Series
Review: Caro's LBJ series is some of the most fascinating history I have read and is hard to put down. Means of Ascent, the second volume, covers Johnson's exaggerated WWII service, what seem to be his lost years of despair in the House of Representatives, the questionable building blocks of his wealth, and then climaxes with the 1948 Senate election in which Caro succeeds in casting a pall over LBJ's subsequent career. The portrayal of Johnson's opponent, Coke Stevension, is that of a rediscovered folk hero taken down by a lesser man. I find it amazing that Caro has devoted so much of his career to a person he dislikes. Nevertheless throughout the series, when LBJ seems close to being undredeemable as a both a politician and a man, Caro comes up with sparks of insight and admiration that almost make up for everything negative (do the means justify the end?). Means of Ascent, however, is optional reading between Path to Power and Master of the Senate. Although very interesting, it does not stand up especially well on its own. Secondly, its essential details are rehashed very well in Master of the Senate (Part of the problem for me may be that I read Master of the Senate first). In conclusion, I recommend this book as worth reading, but cannot rate it exceptional.
Rating:
Summary: Most controversial, so far --
Review: I said it about "The Power Broker", and my comments hold true to the LBJ series. Robert Caro's biographical works are voluminous, but he is a spellbinding storyteller and consummate historian -- all of which leaves the reader wanting more! The excitement and wonder of his personal journey of discovery is evident to the reader. His thorough and meticulous research (with his bride Ina's able assistance) enables him to weave apparent isolated insignificance into a cohesive study of his subject's psychological formation and its effect upon the subject's gaining and wielding of power. That is not to say reader's won't differ in their ethical interpretations of its use, because you can tell by other reviews that they do. In addition, some reviewers feel Caro is generally too negative on Johnson, and in particular for stealing the election from Coke Stevenson. I don't happen to see it that way -- because the facts support the conclusion - and a detailed explanation was necessary to continue to highlight Johnson's acquisition and use of power. But, as always, the reader can make up his/her own mind.
This same rigorous, precise and professional methodology has been applied to his first three (of four intended) volumes of LBJ's biography - leaving the reader anxiously awaiting the study's capstone volume.
With the wordcraft precision of a Lincoln, historical accuracy of Will & Ariel Durant and the captivating storyline of a Dickens, Caro is, I believe, one of the finest living biographers and superb writer.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating political shootout, but may overdo the rehash
Review: Other reviewers on amazon have found this to be the weakest of Caro's three published volumes on LBJ, and while I haven't read volume 3 yet, I agree that this book is not without its flaws. Principally, Caro spends an enormous amount of time rehashing the events of volume 1, often in exactly the same language as in the earlier work. I agree with the reviewer below who asserts that this may have been stronger as a 200-250 page tag to Caro's earlier volume. Yet the story does focus on 3 major details in Johnson's life that are essential to understanding his future relationship to the American public and the manner in which he would wield Senatorial and Presidential power. First, Caro goes into the facts behind Johnson's war service and exposes the political fuel for his service and how he subsequently exaggerated or outright lied about his military record to gain political favor. Not the most important thing in the book but definitely interesting new info. Secondly, Caro reveals how Johnson leveraged his political influence to gain control of a fledgling radio station and turn it into the foundation of his personal fortune. This is a major revelation as it demonstrates that Johnson, while frustrated politically during the 40s, found a way to gain a fortune using his political contacts. Lastly, the entire second half of this book focuses on the Senate primary between Johnson and Coke Stevenson. Caro, while respecting Johnson's energy and creativity in pursuing his aims, considers this an entirely tragic episode in Texas and American politics. The manner in which Johnson obtained funds and outspent his noble candidate bothers Caro. More importantly, Caro feels that Johnson's stolen votes in many ways were the foundation of the credibility gap in Texas politics and in the later Johnson presidency. Caro makes a special point to show how Johnson relished the fact that he used his guile to steal votes, even showing a picture of himself with those he purchased the votes from to a reporter as president. Many reviewers feel this book is too negative on Johnson, but I am convinced by the facts given that a negative position on Johnson is warranted, especially given the amorality of the tactics he used in winning the election. Where I was less convinced was in the nobility of Coke Stevenson as Johnson's foil. Sure Stevenson did not appear to steal votes in the manner of Johnson or vacillate in his positions or really go negative in attacking his candidate. But on the other hand, Stevenson exhibited debilitating tactical blindness and stubborn pride in not directly confronting Johnson's attacks or changing his style in some ways to meet changing times. Stevenson may have had more integrity, but I also feel that he was a deeply conservative politician who was more interested in his political principles than in the political reality he faced. Caro spends so much time portraying him as "Mr. Texas" that I feel he glosses over many of his faults. While Stevenson was a better man, I am not sure he would have been an effective Senator and the United States may have been worse off having him as Senator. I felt that Caro's dislike for Johnson, though justified, led him to distort his portrayal of Stevenson. Overall, though this is a good book which could have been done just a little bit better. It remains a fascinating read and a vital addition to Caro's masterful biography that is worthy of your time and effort. 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: How to steal an election
Review: Seven years of LBJ's life are covered in this volume commencing in 1941. Desperate fear drove Johnson, and in 1941 he lost a race for a senate seat to Pappy O'Daniel. He no longer looked like a winner. He did not want to be like his idealistic, romantic father--rigidly honest. Lyndon Johnson thought it was humiliating to let someone else steal an election from him. FDR told him he had to learn that when the election is over, sit on the ballot boxes.
Johnson ridiculed politicians who fought for ideas and principles. Pearl Harbor prevented him from pursuing a senatorial seat in 1942. Johnson was a naval reserve officer. He made it seem as if he would be called upon to fight, but he angled for a stateside position after he learned that absent training he would have no leadership role in the armed forces. Roosevelt was focused on Stalingrad and Guadalcanal and thus was not available to support Johnson in his political squabbles.
In the House, as in the war, Johnson was not allowed to lead. He gave no speeches and introduced no bills. He grabbed for money. His means was a radio station, KTBC in Austin. At first it was a sundowner and employees wondered from day to day when it would go out of business. Johnson got an option to purchase the station by luck, salesmanship, and an appointment to a service academy he had supplied. The FCC was to approve the sale to Mrs. Johnson.
In the future there would be a galaxy of television and radio stations. In 1943 Lyndon Johnson, through his link to Sam Rayburn, helped the FCC survive congressional scrutiny. Johnson told the employees of the station to work hard and to be loyal. The employees saw the way Johnson treated Lady Bird. Salaries were low and hours were long. Johnson liked power best and he was really happier in politics than business where he had to suit his customer in order to sell radio time. After Roosevelt's death Johnson was no longer an insider.
In 1948 a former governor of Texas, Coke Stevenson, ran in the Democratic primary for the senatorial seat. Robert Caro portrays him admiringly for reason of his incorruptibility. Self-educated, he suffered from a narrow viewpoint. He was a segregationist, an inexcusable position in today's terms. In 1948 Johnson used George Parr, boss of Duval County, to help round up votes for him. Johnson was also helped in the Valley by the machinations of Alvin Wirtz. Caro's tone in much of the book, (which is natural given his informants), is that of a Texas storyteller. Johnson campaigned with a helicopter, the Johnson City Windmill and its smaller successor, and people gathered to see the contraption.
In the run-off primary the Johnson campaign was even more brash and money-ridden. After the polls closed and the votes were counted, George Parr announced that through oversight the votes had not been counted for one of the precincts. New votes would be coming in from the Valley. Seventy two hours after the polls closed was a deadline and at that point Stevenson had a lead of three hundred or so votes. The lead was reduced and when Precinct 13 in Jim Wells County filed an amended return, Johnson was in the lead by 87 votes.
Johnson worked to prevent box 13 from being opened. Alvin Wirtz obtained a restraining order. Later to avoid a hearing on the substance of the voting irregularity charge, Johnson's lawyers, through a strategy devised by Abe Fortas, successfully sought a stay of the proceedings from Justice Black. Johnson did prevail and became known as 'Landslide Lyndon'. Caro interviewed a number of people concerning the mysterious ballot box. Even knowing the outcome the reader savors the details put forth in such entertaining and masterly fashion by Robert Caro.
Rating:
Summary: Stolen Election
Review: The 1948 Texas Senatorial race is the centerpiece of this outstanding 2nd volume of Caro's epic biography of Lyndon Johnson. Caro spends the first half of the book documenting Mr. Johnson's "war years". The second half is devoted to this controversial election. Mr. Caro's writing flows and he does an outstanding job of setting up time and place. I cannot wait to read Volume 3.
Rating:
Summary: Stolen Election
Review: The 1948 Texas Senatorial race is the centerpiece of this outstaning 2nd volume of Caro's epic biography of Lyndon Johnson. Caro spends the first half of the book documenting Mr. Johnson's "war years". The second half is devoted to this controversial election. Mr. Caro's writing flows and he does an outstanding job of setting up time and place. I cannot wait to read Volume 3.
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