Robert A. Caro - Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

Acclaim for Master of the Senate

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. And even though I knew what the outcome of a particular episode would be, I followed Caros account of it with excitement. I went back over chapters to make sure I had not missed a word. Johnson made the impossible happen. Caros description of how he [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, The New York Times Book Review

An epic tale of winning and wielding power.

Dan DeLuca, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Caro must be Americas 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. The author is at his best when relating the impact of congressional action on Americans lives. You can almost smell the musty offices in the Barbour County Courthouse in Eufaula, Ala., as black citizens try in vain to register to vote. Extraordinary.

Richard S. Dunham, BusinessWeek

Brilliant. A riveting political drama.

Douglas Brinkley, The Boston Globe

The most complete portrait of the Senate ever drawn.

Michael Wolff, New York

In this fascinating book, Robert Caro does more than carry forward his epic life of Lyndon Johnson. With compelling narrative power and with remarkable subtlety and sensitivity, he illuminates the Senate of the United States and its byzantine power struggles. In this historical tour-de-force, Robert Caro shows himself the true master of the Senate.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

A terrific study of power politics.

Steve Neal, Chicago Sun-Times

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 shouldnt be much debate about Caros grand achievement, but lets be clear about this nonetheless: In terms of political biography, not only does it not get better than this, it cant.

Patrick Beach, Austin American-Statesman

Many and varied are the delights of this book, and perhaps the best of them is the long, brilliant lead-in to the great set piece of the book: how Lyndon John son passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. This is how the story should be toldall of it. These [legislative battles] are great stories, the stuff of the legends of democracyrich 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.

Molly Ivins, The New York Observer

Indefatigably researched and brilliantly written. Powerful. One of Caros most valuable contributions is his excavation of the lost art of legislating. Rich and rewarding.

Ronald Brownstein, Times Literary Supplement

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.

Robert F. Julian, New York Law Journal

A panoramic study of how power plays out in the legislative arena. Combining the best techniques of investigative reporting with majestic storytelling ability, Caro has created a vivid, revelatory institutional history as well as a rich hologram of Johnsons character. He seems to have perfectly captured and understood Johnsons capacity for greatness.

Jill Abramson, The New York Times

To immerse oneself in Robert Caros heroic biographies is to come face to face with a shocking but unavoidable realization: Much of what we think we know about money, power and politics is a fairy tale. Master of the Senate forces us not only to rewrite our national political history but to rethink it as well. Caros 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. Compulsively readable.

Eric Alterman, The Nation

A spectacular piece of historical biography, delicious reading for both political junkies and serious students of the political process. Fascinating.

Robert D. Novak, The Weekly Standard

If ever the proposition about genius as the taking of infinite pains was relevant, it is surely here. If scholarship, psychological acumen and compulsive readability are the true indices of the great biography, the three volumes to date must rank as the greatest political biography ever written.

Frank McGlynn, The Herald (Glasgow)

Vintage Caroa portrait so deft, vivid, and compelling that you practically feel LBJ gripping your arm and bending you to his will.

Jean Strouse

Caro is a master of biography. With his Tolstoyian touch for story telling and drama, Caro gives us a fascinating ride through the corridors of Senate sovereignty. Of all the many Johnson biographies, none approaches Caros work in painstaking thoroughness, meticulous detail and the capture of character. A dazzling tour de force that certifies Caro as the countrys preeminent specialist in examining political power and its uses.

Paul Duke, The Baltimore Sun

Masterful. A work of genius.

Steve Weinberg, The Times-Picayune

Caro writes history with [a] novelists sensitivity. No historian offers a more vivid sense not only of what happened, but what it looked like and felt like.

Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today

The richly cadenced prose is hypnotic, the research prodigious, the analysis acute, the mood spellbinding, and the cast of characters mythic in scale. I can not conceive of a better book about Capitol Hill. An unforgettable, epic achievement in the art of biography.

Ron Chernow

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.

Steve Kraske, Kansas City Star

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.

Irvine Welsh, New Statesman

Caro has an artists eye for the telling fact or anecdote, and he combines what he has found with a parliamentarian-like knowledge of the Senates operation. Students of the nations history, now or a hundred years from now, will come away from Caros books amazed that the years of LBJs life have been made so vivid and palpable. This master journalist-historian is offering us a unique American classic.

Henry F. Graff, The New Leader

Caro is a gifted and passionate writer, and his all-encompassing approach to understanding LBJ provides readers with a panoramic history of twentieth-century American politics as well as a compelling discourse on the nature and uses of political power. One of the best analyses of the legislative process ever written.

Philip A. Klinkner, The Nation

Also by Robert A. Caro