Robert Caro.
ROBERT CARO: LYNDON JOHNSON BIOGRAPHY VOL.2
MEANS OF ASCENT: THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON (1990)
Lyndon B. Johnson (born 1908) was a Democrat polician from Texas, who served from 1963 to 1969 as the 37th President of the USA. He had been serving as Vice President when President John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. He previously served as a Senator from Texas, and as the Senate Majority Whip. His major achievement as Senate Majority Leader was the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1965 and 1968. He was also as President strongly committed to the war on poverty, through his Great Society agenda. His foreign policy was less successful. He ramped up the military involvement of the USA in the Vietnam War but this led to huge casualties, to the rise of anti-war protests, and to the eventual withdrawal of the USA from Vietnam under his successor Richard Nixon. This second volume of Caro’s biography covers Johnson’s life from 1941 to his election to the United States Senate in 1949.
Reviewers gave high praise to this second volume of Caro’s biography of Johnson. The New York Times wrote: "Thrilling. Caro burns into the reader's imagination the story of the [1948 Senate] election. Never has it been told so dramatically, with breathtaking detail piled on incredible development . . . In The Path to Power, Volume I of his monumental biography, Robert A. Caro ignited a blowtorch whose bright flame illuminated Johnson's early career. In Means of Ascent he intensifies the flame to a brilliant blue point." The Los Angeles Times wrote: "A spellbinding, hypnotic journey into the political life and times of Lyndon Johnson. Riveting drama."
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Robert Caro (born 1935) is a journalist and author known for his much admired biographies of New York City planner Robert Moses and US President Lyndon Johnson. He has won many awards including two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography. He was born in New York City, the son of Jewish parents. He became a prolific writer from a young age. At Princeton his senior thesis ‘Heading Out: A Study of the Development of Ernest Hemingway Thought’ ran to 235 pages and caused the University to introduce a maximum length for senior theses.
