Understanding LBJ

The New York Times reviews Passage to Power and notes it showcases Robert Caro’s “masterly gifts as a writer: his propulsive sense of narrative, his talent for enabling readers to see and feel history in the making and his ability to situate his subjects’ actions within the context of their times.”

“Caro’s descriptions of Johnson — and those of John and Robert Kennedy — have a novelistic depth and amplitude. He gives us a rich sense here of how past experiences shaped their interactions, how one encounter or misunderstanding often snowballed into another, and how Johnson and Robert Kennedy evinced a capacity to grow and change. Even more impressive in these pages is Mr. Caro’s ability to convey, on a visceral level, how daunting the challenges were facing Johnson upon his assumption of the presidency and the magnitude of his accomplishments in the months after Kennedy’s assassination.”