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“A wonderful, a
glorious tale…It will be hard to equal this amazing book. It reads like a
Trollope novel, but not even Trollope explored the ambitions and the
gullibilities of men as deliciously as Robert Caro does. Even though I knew
what the outcome of a particular episode would be, I followed Caro’s account of
it with excitement. I went back over chapters to make sure I had not missed a
word…Caro’s description of how [Johnson passed the civil rights legislation] is
masterly; I was there and followed the course of the legislation closely, but I
did not know the half of it.”
— Anthony Lewis, New York Times Book Review
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“A masterpiece…Robert
Caro has written one of the truly great political biographies of the modern
age.”
— Times (London)
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“Mesmerizing…[It]
brings LBJ blazing into the Senate…A tale rife with drama and hypnotic in the
telling. The historian’s equivalent of a Mahler symphony.”
— Newsweek
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“Brilliant…Caro
achieves a special tension, too rare in history books but essential in epic
poetry: the drama of a hero who is wrestling with his enemies, his limitations
and his fate to achieve something truly lasting…In his hands, the obscure fight
over legislation becomes nothing less than a battle for the soul of America…It’s
a terribly important work, unblinkingly delineating the inner workings of our
democracy.”
— Chicago Tribune
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“An epic tale of
winning and wielding power.”
— Philadelphia Inquirer
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“Caro’s immersion in
the man and period yields a fascinating, entertaining abundance…Master of
the Senate splendidly reassembles the U.S. Senate of those years.”
— Time
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“Caro must be America’s
greatest living Presidential biographer…He entrances us with both his words and
his research…No other contemporary biographer offers such a complex picture of
the forces driving an American politician, or populates his work with such
vividly drawn secondary characters. Extraordinary.”
— BusinessWeek
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“Brilliant…A riveting
political drama.”
— Boston Globe
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“A terrific study of
power politics.”
— Chicago Sun-Times
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“Master of the
Senate and its two preceding volumes are the highest expression of
biography as art. After The Path to Power and Means of Ascent, there shouldn’t be much debate
about Caro’s grand achievement, but let’s be clear about this nonetheless: In
terms of political biography, not only does it not get better than this, it
can’t.”
— Austin American-Statesman
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“These [legislative
battles] are great stories, the stuff of the legends of democracy—rich in
character, plot, suspense, nuttiness, human frailty, maddening stupidity. These
should be the American sagas; these should be our epics. Bob Caro has given us
a beauty, and I think we owe him great thanks.”
— New York Observer
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“Indefatigably researched
and brilliantly written…Powerful…One of Caro’s most valuable contributions is
his excavation of the lost art of legislating…Rich and rewarding.”
— Times Literary Supplement (London)
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“Master of the
Senate forces us not only to rewrite our national political history but to
rethink it as well…Caro’s been burrowing beneath the shadows of the substance
of our politics for more than twenty-eight years, and what he finds is both fascinating
and surprising.”
— Nation
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“Epic…It is
impossible to imagine that a political science class on the U.S. Congress can
be taught today that does not reference this book. It is a florid and graphic account
of how Congress works, an authoritative work on the history of the Senate, and
a virtual cookbook of recipes for legislative success for the nascent
politician.”
— New York Law Journal
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“A spectacular piece of historical biography…For
both political junkies and serious students of the political process…Fascinating.”
— Weekly Journal
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“Caro is a master of
biography…With his Tolstoyian touch for storytelling and drama, Caro gives us a
fascinating ride through the corridors of Senate sovereignty…Of all the many
Johnson biographies, none approaches Caro’s work in painstaking thoroughness,
meticulous detail, and the capture of character…A dazzling tour de force that
certifies Caro as the country’s preeminent specialist in examining political
power and its uses.”
— Baltimore Sun
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“Masterful…A work of
genius.”
— New Orleans Times-Picayune
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“Caro writes history
with [a] novelist’s sensitivity…No historian offers a more vivid sense not only
of what happened, but what it looked like and felt like.”
— USA Today
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“It is, quite simply,
the finest biography I have ever read. It is more than that: it is one of the
finest works of literature I have encountered.”
— New Statesman
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“Destined to rank
among the great political profiles of our time. Master of the Senate succeeds
only in part because Johnson is such a fascinating figure. The other half of
the equation is Caro.”
— Kansas City Star