|
|
Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 2) (Paperback)
by Robert A. Caro
| Category:
American presidency, American history, Biography |
| Market price: ¥ 198.00
MSL price:
¥ 168.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
Detail |
Author |
Description |
Excerpt |
Reviews |
|
|
|
Author: Robert A. Caro
Publisher: Vintage
Pub. in: March, 1991
ISBN: 067973371X
Pages: 592
Measurements: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA01207
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0679733713
|
|
Rate this product:
|
|
- MSL Picks -
Means of Ascent gets rapped at times for being too negative or too narrow in focus. Caro states, "Those threads (elements of LBJ's character and actions), bright and dark, run side by side through most of Lyndon Johnson's life . . . As the story unfolds in succeeding volumes, the threads will, again, run side by side . . . The two threads do NOT (my emphasis) run side by side in this volume. The bright one is missing. For this volume is about a seven-year period in the life of Lyndon Johnson in which his headlong race for power was halted."
It's not Caro's fault that that happens to be the reality of this period in LBJ's life. To "make" the book more balanced would be intellectually dishonest. Let's read the subsequent volumes before passing judgment on the balance of the subject matter in this one.
Note: Since this was written, the third volume (Master of the Senate) has been published. Having read this latest volume, I remain convinced that the work in total should be treated like a jigsaw puzzle: each piece takes on an interesting, unique form with splashes of bright and dark colors, but you have to put them all together to see the entire picture. And the picture is more than just Lyndon Johnson the man - it is a picture of political power in the U.S., embodied in the life and "Years of Lyndon Johnson". What makes Caro's work in "Means of Ascent" so remarkable (along with the other volumes) is not just the recounting of events, but the documented mechanics of the acquisition and execution of power in all its ugly and awesome dimensions. The story of Ballot Box 13 in this volume is a fascinating example. And for the true Caro fan, you simultaneously marvel at the story within the story: the detective-like research work that uncovers the truth, culminating in Johnson's own gloating of the event after he became President.
(From quoting Steve Berch, USA)
|
|
Customers who bought this product also bought:
|
|
Robert A. Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson, which began with the greatly acclaimed The Path to Power, also winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, continues - one of the richest, most intensive and most revealing examinations ever undertaken of an American President. In Means of Ascent the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer/historian, chronicler also of Robert Moses in The Power Broker, carries Johnson through his service in World War II and the foundation of his long-concealed fortune and the facts behind the myths he created about it. But the explosive heart of the book is Caro's revelation of the true story of the fiercely contested 1948 senatorial election, for forty years shrouded in rumor, which Johnson had to win or face certain political death, and which he did win - by "the 87 votes that changed history." Caro makes us witness to a momentous turning point in American politics: the tragic last stand of the old politics versus the new - the politics of issue versus the politics of image, mass manipulation, money and electronic dazzle.
|
|
From Publisher
The second installment in a projected four-volume biography of LBJ that opened with The Path to Power, Means of Ascent shines a harsh light on the early political years of one of America's most paradoxical presidents. The man who would later ram civil rights legislation through a reluctant Congress, and then be brought down by Vietnam, came out of a political swamp--Caro gives a graphic picture of the Texas democratic political machine at its most corrupt. The climax of the book is LBJ's election to the Senate in 1948, an election he won by 87 dubious votes out of almost a million. That vote arguably changed history. This book won the 1990 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
|
| View all 10 comments |
New York Times Book Review, Ronald Steel, USA
<2008-03-07 00:00>
An immensely engrossing and deeply disturbing tale . . . Mr. Caro is an indefatigable investigative reporter and a skillful historian who can make the most abstract material . . . come vibrantly to life. |
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, USA
<2008-03-07 00:00>
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. |
Henry F. Graff, Professor of History, Columbia University, USA
<2008-03-07 00:00>
Brilliant. No brief review does justice to the drama of the story Caro is telling, which is nothing less than how present-day politics was born. |
Mark Feeney, Boston Sunday Globe, USA
<2008-03-07 00:00>
Caro has a unique place among American political biographers. He has become, in many ways, the standard by which his fellows are measured. Caro's diligence [and] ambition are phenomenal . . . A remarkable story . . . Epic. |
View all 10 comments |
|
|
|
|
