Robert A. Caro - 1981,1982,

What a marvelous book! A work of majesty, perhaps unequalled in American political biography. The scope of its research and the sheer effort invested in unearthing facts are awesome.

Robert Massie

Engrossing and revealing. This fascinating, immensely long and highly readable book is the fullest account we haveand are ever likely to haveof the early years of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

David Herbert Donald, front page, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

The Path to Power will burnish Caros reputation as a panoramic biographer. A great story-teller!

Robert Sherrill, front page, WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

A brilliant and necessary book. There are whole and fascinating areas in Johnsons life that no one else discovered.

Merle Miller, front page, CHICAGO TRIBUNE BOOKWORLD

Caros narrative never stumbles, his prose never flattens. The lengthy sketches of supporting players, like Sam Rayburn, are masterly in themselves. And the secret love affairs, cash stuffed envelopes and other reportorial hand grenades seem to come remarkably often for so long a book on so familiar a subject.

Donald Morrison, TIME

Not only is the book an engrossing biographical introduction to our most devious of Presidents, but it is also a brilliant sociological study of Texas and of American politics.

Francis Russell, NATIONAL REVIEW

The blunt fact is that a masterpiece of biography is being added to American literature. For sheer scale, energy and artistry in capturing a mans life, nothing approaches it.

John Barkham Reviews

Outsized and overwhelming. Splendid and moving. Caro presents him so close we can feel him. There are two more volumes to come, which means that at this rate Caros work will eventually acquire Gibbon-like dimensions, Gibbon-like thoroughness too, and Gibbon-like passion. Caro is using Johnson as a focus and symbol for a historical turning point that goes beyond the individual. Caro is a phenomenon. He is an artful writer, with a remarkable power to evoke and characterize politicians, landscapes, relationships; with the ability to convey all manner of experiences. This massive book is almost continuously exciting. It is a tour de force at the very least; eventually, it may come to be the base of a monument.

Richard Eder, LOS ANGELES TIMES

The major biography of recent years. Brilliant. Magisterial. A stunning accomplishment of documentation and narrative. Robert Caro has given us an American life of compelling fascination. The book is a benchmark beside which other biographies will be measured for some time to come.

Alden Whitman, LOS ANGELES HERALD EXAMINER

Superb.

Lynwood Abram, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

An ineradicable likeness of an American giant. All previous accounts of our Presidents growing-up years seem scanty and uninformative by comparison. Caro has brought to life a young man so believable and unforgettable that we can hear his heartbeat and touch him. If an earlier famous Johnson had his Boswell, and Abraham Lincoln his Sandburg, LBJ has found a portraitist who similarly will owe his fame to his great subject and his certitude in taking control of it.

Henry F. Graff, Professor of History, Columbia University, in THE NEW LEADER

Caro has become the nations preeminent biographer. He won both the Pulitzer and the Parkman prizes for his brilliant portrayal of Robert Moses in The Power Broker. Now his masterful portrayal of Lyndon Johnson has already won the National Book Critics Circle Award as the best work of nonfiction published in 1982. The Path to Power is a magnificent mix of narrative history and investigative reporting.

Alan L. Miller, THE DETROIT NEWS

No mere political biography. Caro is on the way to becoming our finest fine-tooth-comb historian, one who researches a subject so thoroughly there seems no possible rebuttal to the arguments he presents on the issues raised.

Jack Goodman, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

The Power Broker:
Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
(1974)

The Years of Lyndon Johnson:
Means of Ascent
(1990)