This is one of my favorite books. I think about it often and am proud to have read it. Published in 1982, Robert Caro’s The Path to Power is the first volume of the now legendary four-volume set The Years of Lyndon Johnson. (Caro is currently working on the fifth and final volume.) Caro is also legendary, primarily because of his biographical work on LBJ. I am part-way through the third volume, but I come back to this book most often in my mind. These books are entertaining in their own right, giving the reader a minute recounting of the life of an interesting and powerful person. The books are also great in that they serve as general histories of the United States. Following LBJ’s life in such detail, particularly after he is elected to the U.S. Congress, allows you to understand the big issues and players of the day. And they allow you to understand power–Caro’s main goal in writing the books is not just to detail the life of an important person in history, but to examine how one attains and uses power.
The Path to Power covers LBJ’s life from his 1908 birth in the Texas Hill Country to his first failed run for the U.S. Senate in 1941. What stands out to me in this first volume is how people’s character is often set at an early age. LBJ was ambitious in his youth–saying frequently that he would be the president of the U.S. some day–and he also had a penchant for dishonesty, specifically for saying or doing whatever he needed to do to get what he wanted. Caro writes that he had “a seemingly bottomless capacity for deceit, deception and betrayal in moving” toward power. In college, LBJ was known around campus for lying and was even involved in stealing a student election. He also had a lifelong ability to endear himself to older men with power who could help him out.
The Path to Power details his whirlwind courtship of Lady Bird, who seems to have been universally liked during her life. The book really gets interesting when LBJ is asked to come to Washington to help run the office of Congressman Richard Kleberg. From there, LBJ takes off. He essentially takes control of Kleberg’s office–corresponding with Kleberg’s constituents, learning how the House operates, and befriending future Speaker and fellow Texan Sam Rayburn. Above all, LBJ works extremely hard–often causing himself to become ill–and then eventually wins a House seat of his own.
Throughout the book, Caro’s research puts you in the scene. Caro has conducted hundreds of interviews for the books and has likely gone through hundreds of thousands of documents. He and his wife even moved to the Hill Country for a time to get a better feel for Johnson’s early years. Caro explains in his book Working how the people he interviewed opened up to him in a new way after he moved there. The care and time taken in researching and writing shine through when reading this long (780 dense pages), but riveting first volume.
I heartily recommend that you read this book. You will learn a lot. You will also make yourself proud. It’s one of those books that just makes you feel good when you see it on the shelf–it reminds you of having accomplished something worthwhile.
You can buy it here.
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