Rating: 
Summary: Slow torture
Review: How dare Robert Caro make us wait eleven years for this masterpiece? With such brilliant prose he leaves us breathless awaiting the next installment . . . and at the rate Caro writes, holding your breath is not a great idea. If it takes a thousand-plus pages to track LBJ through his Senate years, how many thousands will be required to get Caro's inside stories of how LBJ narrowly lost the presidential nomination, then attained the vice presidency, ascended to the throne one black day, plotted Goldwater's demise, engineered two Civil Rights bills that once and for all laid waste to his Old South, fell into and relentlessly prosecuted the Vietnam horror, gave us Medicare and the Great Society, elected not to run in '68 -- not to mention his feud with Robert Kennedy, his ongoing associations with JFK's best and brightest, and LBJ's own final days? I fear that either Caro or I shall not live so long to see his next work. With Caro's talent for ferreting inside truths, he has enough material remaining for ten more multi-hundred-page books; perhaps he will favor us with one every year or so. Master of the Senate is hands down the greatest U.S. political biography ever penned. And the best may be yet to come.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book About American Government
Review: Even the outstanding scholarship and writing in Caro's previous LBJ volumes did not prepare me for the transcendent prose that Caro maintains over more than 1,000 pages.Like Caro, the reader emerges both admiring and despising LBJ for his politics, his ruthlessness and his loathesome personality. The passages regarding the 1957 Civil Rights Act rise to the level of epic poetry. This is a masterful book.
Rating:
Summary: simply the best, but for political junkies
Review: This is one of those books that you will either become enthralled by and devour with awe or feel overloaded and bored and then drop right away. And only true political junkies will love it. I loved it: it is hands down the greatest political biography that I have ever read. Though I disliked the second volume as too one-sided, in this one Caro returns to the full moral complexity of LBJ in this volume. I now see the unity of the entire work, as LBJ positions himself to gain power and yet has some genuine progressive desires to improve the lot of the disadvantaged; the second volume were his "wilderness years" and I will re-read it with that in mind. While LBJ's ideals were always in thrall to his ambition, when the former could serve the latter, he did great things and that is what is covered in the 3rd volume. You really get a sense of how complex men of power are - they can be good and bad at the same time - rather than a caricature or bloodless representative of "historical forces." It is amazing (and inspiring) that an independent work of such magnificent scholarship can be produced outside of academia. The story in this volume is also extremely rich thematically: you get a history of the Senate, a bird's eye view of the arcane power hidden in its "rules," and of course, the great de-blocking of the civil rights reform that had been stalled for nearly 80 years. There are also a number of fascinating sub-themes, such as LBJ's shameful pioneering of McCarthyite tactics to destroy the career of bureaucrat Leland Olds in the service of Texas oil interests or the depths of depression to which he could fall when his ambitions appeared thwarted or the career of Sen. Richard Russell (he was a racist and yet a man of principle and honor). But at the center of it all is his genius to take a position that no one wanted and turn it into a new source of power, which he did as Senate majority leader: it had been, for over a century, a position that brought ridicule on those who tried to exercise power on the unruly collection of individuals we call senators. In doing so, LBJ fundamentally changed the way that the modern senate functioned, reintroducing discipline through the creation of effective incentives and threats that no one was able to muster before him. That is genius and Caro explains how. If there are some problems with the book, the majority of them come from Caro's own political biases: he takes as a given that anything liberal is "good." Moreover, as critics repeat endlessly, because Caro embarked on a vast enterprise with his multi-volume biography (and it will probably take him more than 45 years to complete it), his interest in LBJ verges on obsession and he appears at times as too superhuman to believe. The book at 1,000 pages is also too long: I lugged it around on vacation and occasionally tired of the endless stream of examples and detail as the binding began to rip in transit. Indeed, there are several full books in this volume. Though I have studied politics for over 25 years, there were many, many things that I have learned from Caro's opus and I eagerly await the final volume in the series. Caro writes with such elegance, clarity, and drama that I am in awe of his literary talents, even if he sometimes goes too far. This is a masterpiece whose depth is similar to that of the great writers of the past, such as Gibbon or Thucydides. It is destined to become a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Triumph of Biography, History and Story Telling
Review: Robert Caro has written a tour de force. At a thousand pages, this is a weighty book. Yet it reads with the ease of a great novel. A tribute not only to Caro's authorship, but also the material with which he worked. Lyndon Johnson has to be just about one of the most fascinating personalities to write about. This is a book about ambition and power. Covering the ten years of the 1950's, it looks at Johnson's Senate career. During that time, LBJ made the job of Majority Leader -- one that had been powerless and had in fact led to the defeat at the polls of two of his immediate predicessors -- into a positio of absolute authority. LBJ did the politically impossible in taming the United States Senate. Caro's focus is on Johnson's methods, personal qualities and unique appreciation for power. As LBJ said himself, "I know where to find power and how to use it." He did indeed. For Johnson, power was a tool to gain what he set his eyes on early -- the U.S. Presidency. LBJ didn't believe in much -- though Caro tries to make a case that some of LBJ's interest in the 1957 Civil Rights Act was alturistic. He believed in LBJ and his right to control the Senate and ultimately the presidency. Freed from ideology, LBJ was pure politics. This was perhaps useful in passing our nation's first civil rights bill since Reconstruction, Eisenhower's Civil Rights Act of 1957. LBJ was able to convince some liberals that he was really with them and almost all of the southern segregationists that he was with them. A crucial fact that persuaded the segregationist block of senators to not use the filabuster was their desire to see a southerner in the White House. That southerner for which they were willing to relax their 80 year stranglhold on civil rights was LBJ. LBJ became their lodestar because of his relationship with Richard Russell -- southern and segregationist icon who commanded obedience from southern senators and respect from the entire body. Russell became LBJ's champion and guide and weilded the southern block to first create and solidify LBJ's power as majority leader and then to create legislative opportunities that had previously been impossible. LBJ's capture of Russell followed his life long pattern in creating power. He always discovered who was the person who could help him the most and than worked slavishly to ingratiate himself to that person. It worked with FDR, Sam Rayburn and Dick Russell. His charming of these tough men -- creating almost father/son relationships (though not as close with FDR), turned these men into his agents of advancement. Of course LBJ used his powers for nefarious purposes also. Caro spends a lot of time focusing on LBJ's demolishing of Leland Old's at his reconfirmation hearing -- displaying LBJ's power on behalf of natural gas producers and his willingness to utterly destroy a good man and fine public servant when it suited his purposes. This is a wonderful case study on legislative power and politics. Any legislative leader, or legislator, would learn from reading this. The general public will be fascinated by the utterly gripping and unforgettable portrait of a man who truly was the "Master of the Senate."
Rating: 
Summary: Great research, well told.
Review: Nonetheless, the book itself was not an easy read, in part I think because Caro's portrait of LBJ is of a man so offensive that I think I would not have wanted to have been in the same room with him for more than 10 minutes. The book really begins with LBJ's election to the House, glosses over his war years and picks up with his election to the Senate in a race that earned him the facetious moniker "Landslide Lyndon". He was certainly a master of the workings of government, using whatever means were necessary to get his way. There are ample examples of his dishonesty, cruelty, coarseness and plain mean-spiritedness. In addition, his pitiful treatment of LadyBird and his near total disregard of his daughters are also well documented. In point of fact, it was difficult to find any redeeming qualities at all in LBJ, and the so-called Great Society husbanded by this long-time racist can only be explained in political terms, not in any humanistic epiphany he might have experienced. In any case, the book is well executed, but like a well thought out horror house, the effect is unsettling.
Rating:
Summary: Caro is back
Review: Robert Caro has done it again. Recovering from Means of Ascent, he has brought back LBJ in full form, the good and the bad. And, like Path to Power, he focuses on two things. In Path to Power, it is LBJ and the Texas Hill Country. In Master of the Senate, it is LBJ and the U.S. Senate. The book starts out with a history of the Senate, and picks up with how LBJ made the Senate his own. Like in Caro's previous books, other figures are detailed, like Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, and Bobby Baker. It tells of his early relationship with JFK, and his acceptance of the nomination for Vice President. This book is a soaring success, and well worth the long read. Can't wait for number four!
Rating:
Summary: Brings an earlier time and people to life
Review: Of course this is a great book and series, but here is the bottom line: After fininshing the book, and realizing that I would not see the next one for who knows how long, I actually started missing Johnson and the other characters. The book brings you so far into their world that I found myself totally immersed - and when I had to come back to the present, I missed LBJ. C'mon, Robert, let's get that next one done!
Rating:
Summary: Detailed, thorough, engrossing
Review: As one might expect from Caro, another brilliantly researched and engrossingly told volume. Of particular note are the opening chapters (a preamble offering a concise history of the Senate itself) and the closing chapters (on the historic first Civil Rights bill). Caro manages to make clear and interesting, all manner of political maneuvering. I will never think of the Senate -- or American politics -- the same way again. All I can add is, I can't wait for the next volume.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant digust
Review: This is a phenomenal book. For 900 of its 1000+ pages, I was absolutely riveted, unable to think of anything else until I finished. The strongest and most indelible impression left by the book is of the utter corruption of the US Senate, an institution steeped in reactionary politics and thoroughly soiled by "campaign contributions," otherwise known as bribes from big business. To read in such detail of Senators' horse-trading their votes, abandoning all principle for personal gain within the Senate playground, is truly chilling. Caro's portrait of the Senate is devastating, and no one who holds our government in high esteem can leave this book unshaken. The book is flawed, however. While generally a huge fan of Caro's style, sometimes he gets the better of himself, writing run on sentences (one ran 8 lines and included over 15 commas) and repeating his own analysis. In fact, this last criticism points to a large weakness in the book's closing chapters: Caro seems determined to make the passage of the "Civil Rights" bill of '57 the climax of the book and to give Johnson credit for it, yet he lacks the evidence to do so. He spends page after page assuring the reader how impossible any compromise was on this bill while offering little detail as to what Johnson was doing between January and July of '57. In fact, several critical decisions were not made or even very much influenced by Johnson. While Johnson pulled off sevearl stunning maneuvers, they came after months of prevarication and they all severed to destroy the bill's spirit. The bill itself was no great shakes, as Caro briefly admits, and was so gutted by the time it was passed that all but the most deluded of liberals recognized that it was almost worse than passing noting. Johnson may have "redeemed" himself in '64 and '65, but the '57 bill was a shameful, useless piece of legislation. However, the book is thrilling and horrifying and a terrific read. There are many gorgeous set pieces, including the history of the Senate, the barbaric crucifixion of Leland Olds, the mini-bio of Russell, and the account of the '56 Democratic Convention. An interesting sub-theme running through the book is the corruption of Hubert Humphrey, a Senator with so much promise who quickly emasculated himself and his beliefs in order to gain political advantage as Johnson's toady. That sad, sad tale will hopefully be told in someone else's book. Finally, to the criticism that this book does not delve deeply enough in Johnson the man or his psyche, well, that's fine by me. I came to this book hoping to learn about LBJ (I haven't read the first two in the series) and the Senate. I got absolutely more than I could handle. As I see it, the book's subtitle, "The Years of Lyndon Johnson," rebuffs any criticism that it focusses to much on events outside of LBJ. As it is, this book provides us with a terrifying close-up view of Senate power through its use and, more often, abuse, by Johnson.
Rating:
Summary: Loved the ends
Review: I loved the beginning (a brief history of the Senate) and the end (the build up and resolution of the civil rights legislation battle). However, there were bits, like the Old story, that were too long and drawn out. But, on the whole, it was illuminating on the subject of politics and how the senate works and how Johnson changed the Senate in important ways. In fact, I never realized the impact Johnson had on the Senate and making it work (making it less of an impediment to progress). Overall really entertaining and informative. An aside: To the fellow above who objected to what he calls Caro's alleged references to "right to unlimited debate". Caro talks about filibuster as a Senate rule several times and talks about times they tried to change the rule at the beginning of new sessions so clearly he understood this is not a "right" but a rule of the Senate that COULD be changed.
|
