Lone Star Rising: Vol. 1: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960
- ISBN-10
- 0199763054
- ISBN-13
- 9780199763054
- Series
- Lone Star Rising
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography
- Pages
- 754
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1991-08-15
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Author
- Robert Dallek
Description
Like other great figures of 20th-century American politics, Lyndon Johnson defies easy understanding. An unrivaled master of vote swapping, back room deals, and election-day skulduggery, he was nevertheless an outspoken New Dealer with a genuine commitment to the poor and the underprivileged. With aides and colleagues he could be overbearing, crude, and vindictive, but at other times shy, sophisticated, and magnanimous. Perhaps columnist Russell Baker said it best: Johnson "was a character out of a Russian novel...a storm of warring human instincts: sinner and saint, buffoon and statesman, cynic and sentimentalist." But Johnson was also a representative figure. His career speaks volumes about American politics, foreign policy, and business in the forty years after 1930. As Charles de Gaulle said when he came to JFK's funeral: Kennedy was America's mask, but this man Johnson is the country's real face. In Lone Star Rising, Robert Dallek, winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize for his study of Franklin D. Roosevelt, now turns to this fascinating "sinner and saint" to offer a brilliant, definitive portrait of a great American politician. Based on seven years of research in over 450 manuscript collections and oral histories, as well as numerous personal interviews, this first book in a two-volume biography follows Johnson's life from his childhood on the banks of the Pedernales to his election as vice-president under Kennedy. We see Johnson, the twenty-three-year-old aide to a pampered millionaire Representative, become a de facto Congressman, and at age twenty-eight the country's best state director of the National Youth Administration. We see Johnson, the "human dynamo," first in the House and then in the Senate, whirl his way through sixteen- and eighteen-hour days, talking, urging, demanding, reaching for influence and power, in an uncommonly successful congressional career. Dallek pays full due to Johnson's failings--his obsession with being top dog, his willingness to cut corners, and worse, to get there-- but he also illuminates Johnson's sheer brilliance as a politician, the high regard in which key members of the New Deal, including FDR, held him, and his genuine concern for minorities and the downtrodden. No president in American history is currently less admired than Lyndon Johnson. Bitter memories of Vietnam have sent Johnson's reputation into free fall, and recent biographies have painted him as a scoundrel who did more harm than good. Lone Star Rising attempts to strike a balance. It does not neglect the tawdry side of Johnson's political career, including much that is revealed for the first time. But it also reminds us that Lyndon Johnson was a man of exceptional vision, who from early in his career worked to bring the South into the mainstream of American economic and political life, to give the disadvantaged a decent chance, and to end racial segregation for the well-being of the nation.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Lone Star Rising: The Texas Rangers Trilogy
By Elmer KeltonThree tales of the Old West chronicle the formative years of the Texas Rangers as they follow the exploits of Rusty Shannon, a one-time captive of the Comanche, who pursues his own quest for vengeance while struggling to uphold justice.
-
Lone Star Rising: The Texas Rangers Trilogy
By Elmer KeltonIn Texas Justice, the first three of these critically acclaimed books are now brought together in a single volume. In The Buckskin Line, Kelton introduces the red-haired boy captured by a Comanche war party after the massacre of his family.
-
Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960
By Robert DallekDiscusses the contradictions of Johnson's early life and career, including his years as congressman, senator, and majority leader
-
Lone Star Rising
By Gertrude CrownfieldThis is a new release of the original 1940 edition.
-
Lone Star Midnight
By Delores FossenWith the Texas temperatures rising, resisting each other becomes impossible… Despite the pressure to three-peat, Shane McKay refuses to indulge his mother’s fantasy of having all three of her sons married to the three Reynolds sisters.
-
Texas Rising: The Epic True Story of the Lone Star Republic and the Rise of the Texas Rangers, 1836-1846
By Stephen L. MooreAcclaimed Texas historian Stephen L. Moore's new narrative history tells the full, thrilling story of the Texas Revolution from its humble beginnings to its dramatic conclusion, and reveals the contributions of the fabled Texas ...
-
Eighteen Minutes: The Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Independence Campaign
By Stephen L. Moore... John Harmon , Ben Thomas Jr. , Andrew Caddell and Daniel McGary.44 The other Redlands company joining the Texas Army was that of Captain Benjamin Bryant , who had just celebrated his thirty - sixth birthday on March 15.
-
Lone Star Rising
By Sue Ann WaggonerThree generations of the proud and determined Chase family seek new lives and their fortune as they struggle to carve out an empire on the Texas frontier
-
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State
By Randolph B. CampbellCampbell presents the epic tales of Texas history in a new light, offering revisionist history in the best sense--broadening and deepening the traditional story, without ignoring the heroes of the past. The scope of the book is impressive.
-
Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans
By T. R. FehrenbachT. R. Fehrenbach is a native Texan, military historian and the author of several important books about the region, but none as significant as this work, arguably the best single volume about Texas ever published.