The Passage of Power - Softcover

Robert A. Caro

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847922953 ISBN 13: 9781847922953

Publisher: The Bodley Head Ltd, 2014

Synopsis

The fourth volume of Robert Caro's monumental work on American President Lyndon Johnson spans the years 1958 to 1964, arguably the most crucial years in the life of Johnson and pivotal years for American history.

This era saw some of the most frustrating moments of Johnson's career, but also some of his most triumphant. His battle with the Kennedy brothers over the 1960 Democratic nomination for president was a bitter one, and the ensuing years of Johnson's vice-presidency were marked with humiliation. But, thrust into power following the assassination of J. F. Kennedy, Johnson grasped the presidential role with unprecedented skill.

Caro provides a fresh perspective on the extremely well-document event of the Kennedy assassination from the singular viewpoint of Lyndon Johnson, and penetrates deep into what it was like for Johnson to assume a position of such power at a time of national crisis.

The Passage of Power documents Johnson's extraordinary early presidency, forcing previously abandoned bills on the budget and civil rights through an uncooperative Congress and striving to achieve what he saw to be the highest standard of office.

This is a biography of a man and of his times. Caro shows a delicacy of touch and a profoundness of insight into the state of a nation under the hand of a political master. Collectively these volumes constitute a major history of America in the first three-quarters of the twentieth century.

About this title

Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2012: In the fourth volume of Caro’s ambitious, decades-long biographic exploration, Lyndon Johnson finally reaches the White House. At 600-plus pages, it’s a brick of a book, but it reads at times like a novel, and a thriller, and a Greek tragedy. Caro's version of JFK's assassination is especially chilling, and the characters—not just LBJ, but the Kennedys and the power brokers of Washington --are downright Shakespearean. --Neal Thompson

About the Author

Robert A. Caro has twice won the Pulitzer Prize, twice 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 “exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist.” In 2010, President Obama presented him with the National Humanities Medal. Caro lives in New York City with his wife, Ina, an historian and writer.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Bodley Head Ltd
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847922953
• ISBN 13: 9781847922953
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 736