The Path to Power
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The Path to Power
The award-winning, bestselling biography that traces Lyndon Johnson's rise tonational prominence.
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Description
The Path to Power is the first book in this monumental series by Robert A. Caro. The narrative vividly details the formative years of Lyndon Baines Johnson, unraveling the complex forces that shaped his indomitable drive and unrelenting pursuit of political power. Chronicling Johnson’s life journey from his humble beginnings in rural Texas to his initial ascendancy in New Deal Washington, this volume traces his rise against the backdrop of the Great Depression and his early political struggles.
The book opens with Johnson’s challenging childhood in one of the most impoverished and isolated regions of America. Faced with a mediocre education and haunted by his father’s financial collapse, Lyndon harboured an unquenchable aspiration to succeed. Caro meticulously documents young Lyndon's fervent need to win, his capacity for hard, relentless work, and his early understanding that power was not just pursued but seized.
As a college student, Johnson's political acumen began to surface. He instinctively and ruthlessly started building the political machine that would follow him through his career. Caro provides a close-up view of Johnson's extraordinary talent to charm and manipulate influential older men and his ability to galvanise and dominate his subordinates. By his early thirties, Johnson had already begun to channel the wealth and influence of burgeoning oil magnates and contractors, laying the foundation for his future power.
The portrayal of Johnson’s relationship with powerful figures is equally compelling. The book delves into his fluctuating dynamics with “Mr. Sam” Rayburn, who both mentored and loved him, as well as with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. These relationships reveal Johnson’s capacity for both loyalty and betrayal, highlighting his complex political manoeuvres and ambitious nature.
Equally enlightening are the accounts of his personal life. Caro explores Johnson's emotional entanglements, from his familial relationships to his courtship and marriage to the shy and steadfast Lady Bird, and his secret, long-term affair with the mistress of a supporter. Johnson's diverse interactions underscore his multifaceted persona—at once ruthless, inspirational, treacherous, and devoted.
The narrative doesn’t just illuminate Johnson's life but also the world that shaped him. It paints a vivid picture of the harsh, lonely life in rural Texas, the bleak landscape of the Depression, and the transformative optimism ushered in by Roosevelt’s New Deal. Amid these broader historical currents, Johnson emerges as a figure of unparalleled ambition and political genius, constantly on the move, always seeking to dominate and succeed.
In The Path to Power, Caro brings to life a young Lyndon Johnson with an almost unparalleled depth, offering readers an extraordinary insight into the making of one of America’s most complex and compelling political figures. This work stands not just as a biography, but as a profound exploration of the American political fabric and the relentless individualism that defines it.
Here is Lyndon Johnson—his Texas, his Washington, his America—in a book that brings us as close as we have ever been to a true perception of political genius and the American political process.
Series: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
The Path to Power by Robert A. Caro is highly praised for its excellence in biography, rich detail, and powerful narrative. Reviewers commend Caro's deep research, vivid character portrayals, and detailed evocation of the Texas Hill Country and Lyndon B. Johnson's ambition. It is considered a monumental and compelling political saga, with some calling it a benchmark in American historical writing.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780679729457
Publisher: Random House USA Inc
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 17 February 1990
Country: United States
Imprint: Vintage Books
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 41.0mm
Width: 157.0mm
Height: 234.0mm
Weight: 1191g
Pages: 960
About the Author
For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, ROBERT A. CARO has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, has three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has also won virtually every other major literary honor, including the National Book Award, the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that best “exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist.” In 2010 President Barack Obama awarded Caro the National Humanities Medal, stating at the time: “I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I was twenty-two years old and just being mesmerized, and I’m sure it helped to shape how I think about politics.” The London Sunday Times has said that Caro is “The greatest political biographer of our times.”
Caro’s first book, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, everywhere acclaimed as a modern classic, was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century. It is, according to David Halberstam, “Surely the greatest book ever written about a city.” And The New York Times Book Review said: “In the future, the scholar who writes the history of American cities in the twentieth century will doubtless begin with this extraordinary effort.”
The first volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, The Path to Power, was cited by The Washington Post as “proof that we live in a great age of biography . . . [a book] of radiant excellence . . . Caro’s evocation of the Texas Hill Country, his elaboration of Johnson’s unsleeping ambition, his understanding of how politics actually work, are—let it be said flat out—at the summit of American historical writing.” Professor Henry F. Graff of Columbia University called the second volume, Means of Ascent, “brilliant. No review does justice to the drama of the story Caro is telling, which is nothing less than how present-day politics was born.” The London Times hailed volume three, Master of the Senate, as “a masterpiece . . . Robert Caro has written one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age.” The Passage of Power, volume four, has been called “Shakespearean . . . A breathtakingly dramatic story [told] with consummate artistry and ardor” (The New York Times) and “as absorbing as a political thriller . . . By writing the best presidential biography the country has ever seen, Caro has forever changed the way we think about, and read, American history” (NPR). On the cover of The New York Times Book Review, President Bill Clinton praised it as “Brilliant . . . Important . . . Remarkable. With this fascinating and meticulous account Robert Caro has once again done America a great service.”
“Caro has a unique place among American political biographers,” The Boston Globe said . . . “He has become, in many ways, the standard by which his fellows are measured.” And Nicholas von Hoffman wrote: “Caro has changed the art of political biography.”
Born and raised in New York City, Caro graduated from Princeton University, was later a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and worked for six years as an investigative reporter for Newsday. He lives in New York City with his wife, Ina, the historian and writer.
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