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Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume III (Part 3 of a 3-Part Recording) Audiobook
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Master of the Senate, Book Three of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, carries Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done. It was during these years that all Johnson’s experience—from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine—came to fruition. Caro introduces the story with a dramatic account of the Senate itself: how Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun had made it the center of governmental energy, the forum in which the great issues of the country were thrashed out. And how, by the time Johnson arrived, it had dwindled into a body that merely responded to executive initiatives, all but impervious to the forces of change. Caro anatomizes the genius for political strategy and tactics by which, in an institution that had made the seniority system all-powerful for a century and more, Johnson became Majority Leader after only a single term-the youngest and greatest Senate Leader in our history; how he manipulated the Senate’s hallowed rules and customs and the weaknesses and strengths of his colleagues to change the “unchangeable” Senate from a loose confederation of sovereign senators to a whirring legislative machine under his own iron-fisted control. Caro demonstrates how Johnson’s political genius enabled him to reconcile the unreconcilable: to retain the support of the southerners who controlled the Senate while earning the trust—or at least the cooperation—of the liberals, led by Paul Douglas and Hubert Humphrey, without whom he could not achieve his goal of winning the presidency. He shows the dark side of Johnson’s ambition: how he proved his loyalty to the great oil barons who had financed his rise to power by ruthlessly destroying the career of the New Dealer who was in charge of regulating them, Federal Power Commission Chairman Leland Olds. And we watch him achieve the impossible: convincing southerners that although he was firmly in their camp as the anointed successor to their leader, Richard Russell, it was essential that they allow him to make some progress toward civil rights. In a breathtaking tour de force, Caro details Johnson’s amazing triumph in maneuvering to passage the first civil rights legislation since 1875. Master of the Senate, told with an abundance of rich detail that could only have come from Caro’s peerless research, is both a galvanizing portrait of the man himself—the titan of Capital Hill, volcanic, mesmerizing—and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings and personal and legislative power.
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"I knew practically nothing about Lyndon Johnson when I started to read this. Other than knowing he was in office when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, and having a deep familiarity with the employment law aspects of that act, I knew little about him other than his "Great Society" legislation, and even that vaguely. This book chronicles, with great detail, his time in Congress, particularly that time he spent in the Senate. I am not certain I have ever taken so long to read a single book, but this was a very dense read. While Caro's political views become clear at various points throughout, I never felt he was saying things that were unjustified, in part due to the extremely thorough documentation. That being said, he made the story compelling and the people involved real. He avoided the twin traps of many biographies; he was neither apologist nor accuser. He sometimes ranged towards one side or the other, but overall I come away with the impression of a well-balanced view of an extraordinarily fascinating man."
— Denae (4 out of 5 stars)
Awards
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A #1 New York Times bestseller
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Winner of the 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography
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A USA Today bestseller
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Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography
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A 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
Master of the Senate Listener Reviews
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" One of the best books I have read...Robert Caro's research is impressive...he deserved the award... "
— Srinivas, 2/20/2014 -
" I read this book years ago....while I was reading all of Julia Alvarez books. Liked it then. Since it is this month's book club book, I listened to the Audible recording. Excellent. Each of the four Mirabel sisters had a different actress/reader reading her part. Julia Alvarez' family escaped from the Dominican Republic during the Trujillo regime. During the same time....the Mirabel sisters fought for democracy and lost their lives. This is a work of fiction based upon what the lives of these celebrated sisters may have been. It is historical fiction of this time in the Dominican Republic. Well worth reading. "
— Kathy, 2/14/2014 -
" Easily one of the finest books I have ever read. Looking forward very much to the final two volumes. "
— Spencer, 2/12/2014 -
" One of the best biographies I have ever read. A firmer editorial hand would have reduced the bulk of this monstrous volume. (We get it: Johnson's support for civil rights waxed and waned with what his ambition required at any given moment. Johnson liked poor people and minorities, but he loved power most of all.) The book is worth it for Caro's portrait of Richard Russell alone, not to mention sketches of dozens of minor characters. "
— Rick, 2/10/2014 -
" This is a good book to learn more about the people who were urder control by republican government. It is a good book. "
— Onyi, 2/7/2014 -
" Super worth the read to learn about the Mirabal sisters and the end of the Trujillo era. Tragic. "
— Julia, 2/4/2014 -
" Very long but worth it. Now I must wait until 2012 for the forth volume. This book would be a wonderful tool to use with students at the high school or college level. "
— Mary, 2/3/2014 -
" I enjoyed the history and I really liked the voices that Alvarez gave each sister. There is a certain power in having a voice and I think she really nails the dynamic of the power of giving someone a voice and making that voice so powerful that is sparks a revolution. It doesn't have to be a revolution on a large scale but maybe just a little one, one that inspires all those who read today to remember the past and the sacrifices made by the brave butterflies! "
— Annie, 2/3/2014 -
" Such a masterpiece. It teaches so much about the Senate and the legislative side of the civil rights struggle, and it does so in a way that never feels like work and is completely fascinating. "
— Cwelshhans, 1/27/2014 -
" The history and structure of the U.S. Senate alsone is worth the substantial commitment of tackling this tome. I found LBJ's horrible personality traits the hardest thing to push through in this classic of biography and political history. Also surprising was the extent of what looks like out and out, no sugar coating, fat envelopes of cash like a money laundering drug dealer corruption. This volume of Caro's treatise on LBJ may well be an indispensable part of the American nonfiction canon. "
— Geoff, 1/27/2014 -
" Caro has a style that's unlike any other nonfiction writer I've experienced, he has the dramatic turn of phrase of a novelist and the eye for detail of a documentary filmmaker. As good as the previous two books in this series are, this one has much greater nuance in its portrayal of Johnson. I can't wait for the planned fourth volume. The only better biography that comes close is The Power Broker, Caro's biography of Robert Moses. "
— Owen, 1/22/2014
About Robert A. Caro
Robert Allan Caro is an American journalist and author known for his celebrated biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson. His The Power Broker, a biography of New York urban planner Robert Moses, was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century. For his biographies, he has won two Pulitzer Prizes in Biography, the National Book Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, the H. L. Mencken Award, the Carr P. Collins Award from the Texas Institute of Letters, the D. B. Hardeman Prize, and a Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
About Grover Gardner
Grover Gardner (a.k.a. Tom Parker) is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.