Means of Ascent
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Means of Ascent
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Description
Means of Ascent, the second volume in Robert A. Caro’s monumental work The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vividly brings to life the early career of one of America’s most complex and controversial figures, Lyndon B. Johnson. Caro’s meticulous research and narrative brilliance illuminate Johnson's wilderness years, highlighting his indomitable will, strategic genius, and relentless ambition.
This multifaceted biography captures Johnson at his most ambitious and enigmatic. The book takes us from the aftermath of his devastating defeat in the 1941 Senate campaign—a loss that deeply wounded him and led to a period of personal and political desolation—through his service in World War II, including the crafty embellishments he made to his military record. Readers are plunged into the intricate details of how Johnson laid the foundation for his substantial fortune, disentangling the myths from the reality he so carefully constructed.
The narrative crescendos with the gripping account of the 1948 senatorial election, a pivotal moment in Johnson’s career and one of the most contentious elections in American history. Caro’s extensive investigation peels back the layers of secrecy and speculation surrounding the election that Johnson seemingly could not win but did—by a razor-thin margin of 87 votes, votes that irrevocably altered the course of American political history.
Caro’s storytelling prowess is on full display as he not only explores Johnson’s formidable strategic acumen and inexhaustible energy but also paints a vivid portrait of his formidable opponent, former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson. Stevenson, a figure of unimpeachable integrity and a living symbol of the mythic cowboy knight, represents the last vestiges of old-school American politics. Through this dramatic political duel, which brims with the moral and confrontational drama of a classic Western, Caro presents a critical turning point in the American political landscape—the tragic eclipse of the politics of principle by the nascent politics of image, mass media manipulation, and financial influence.
By the conclusion of Means of Ascent, readers are provided with an eye-opening revelation of Johnson’s ascent. Caro brings forth a nuanced, richly layered portrait of a man who harboured an unyielding quest for power, rendering every part of his journey in engrossing detail and returning to the American consciousness a complex, larger-than-life figure.
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?
Means of Ascent by Robert A. Caro is highly praised for its thrilling and detailed recount of the 1948 Senate election. Critics commend Caro's dramatic storytelling and meticulous research, making it a compelling study of political power and corruption. Described as both a political biography and a detective story, it highlights Lyndon Johnson's character and ambition, receiving acclaim for its riveting narrative and in-depth analysis.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780679733713
Publisher: Random House USA Inc
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 06 March 1991
Country: United States
Imprint: Ballantine Books Inc.
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 30.0mm
Width: 155.0mm
Height: 234.0mm
Weight: 714g
Pages: 592
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.” In 2016 he received the National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. 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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