A Book Series Recommendation For 2019
I’m not sure who I read it from, I think Ryan Holiday, but one of the best ways to learn history is to read biographies. You learn about important events in time not as facts that you have to memorize for a test, but as critical, complex, and stressful situations that real people had to navigate to get us to the world we know it as today.
But, if books themselves are only a section of entertainment, and biographies a subsection of books, within another subsection is the political biography. Once you start to go through the rabbit hole of subsections, there probably aren’t a plethora of people who spend their free time reading political biographies, and I realize there may be even less who focus on one person for books on end.
For those of you who are willing to fall into that last section of people, may I recommend Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson series.
It’s currently made up of four books, but it’s a planned five-part series. They are:
- The Path to Power — The first book of the series tells us of Johnson’s youth, family history, about life in the Texas hill country, and the beginning of his political rise.
- Means of Ascent — The second book tells us how Johnson began to make his money, his brief military service during World War 2, and his controversial victory in the US Senate race in 1948. (This Senate race set the stage for his rise to national power.)
- Master of the Senate — The third book tells us of the years where Lyndon Johnson mastered the United States Senate, which for many years since the Civil War (and still often today), hasn’t worked to its potential. The book includes an entire history of the US Senate and insightful, crucial passages about the Civil Rights movement, and so much more.
- The Passage of Power — In the fourth book we learn of Johnson’s time as Vice President, his rivalry with Bobby Kennedy, the Kennedy assassination, and his time in office following that tragedy.
When I tried to think of the important events that happened (in my life) in the year 2018, I had a hard time thinking of many. But I did think of the fact that I started reading these books. And it’s only the beginning. They’ve led me on an onslaught of reading about Lyndon Baines Johnson that still includes many more books (here and here) and of course, the fifth and final book by Robert Caro when it’s published.
How come so much Lyndon Johnson?
The first reason is, despite writing political biographies with often dense subject matter, Robert Caro is a master at his craft. He’s an exceptional writer that knows how to turn the most minute detail or event into prose that rivals any dramatic fiction (while showing you why that detail may be more important than meets the eye.)
The next is that Robert Caro never set out to write about the life of a great man. The focus of his work is political power. His first book, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, is about its protagonist with the same name and his accumulation of mass power without ever being elected to public office. He helped shape modern New York as we know it.
With The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro shows the nitty-gritty of how power works in a democracy. He tells us of the Machiavellian instincts at play, the cajoling, the crooked financial dealings, the persuasion, and the political world at its worse, while also showing us of moments where it’s at its best. There are moments where we see bravery, sacrifice, courage, and compassion. (We especially see this in the stories that Robert Caro shares of those who fought for Civil Rights in the United States.)
And we learn so much more. We learn about human nature. We learn about the complexities of personality and character. We learn how people who are so ruthless can have moments of compassion and justice. We learn how people not known by those around them for being tough can be the ones who respond the best in moments of crisis, and we see how ambition can lead a person to the depths of despair and the heights of triumph.
The Years of Lyndon Johnson are so great because the series in some ways is a microcosm of ourselves. There are moments where you feel the triumph of what humans can overcome, followed by many moments where you’re brought down to size by seeing how cruel humans can really be.
And we’re given many stories that are often lost to history. We’re told of people like Sam Rayburn, the longest tenured Speaker of the House, and Richard Brevard Russell, who historians agree is one of the most successful Senators in US history, but who also led the south in delaying and trying to stop Civil Rights. (He’s who one of the Senate Office Buildings is named after today. And there’s a conversation going on about how appropriate that is.)
I realize that the amount of people who want to read these books is small, and the recommendation probably falls on deaf ears. At its best this is an opportunity for me to boast and rave about Robert Caro’s writing while also highlighting a series that I think every person and especially citizen of this country would benefit from reading.
I think these books help us understand the world around us, through the people who occupy the powerful positions that shape our lives and by seeing the honest and intense reality of their (and our) human nature.
At a time when our country seems so divided, and where public power and who deserves to yield it seems a conversation that has inched its way into various parts of our world, The Years of Lyndon Johnson is one of the best ways to understand it firsthand.
