Sign-In
Cart
Lone Star Rising: Vol. 1: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960
Paperback
Historical FiguresPresidents & Heads of State20th Century United States History
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0195079043
ISBN13: 9780195079043
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Nov 12 1992
Pages: 754
Weight: 2.16
Height: 1.96 Width: 5.73 Depth: 8.92
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780195079043
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Nov 12 1992
Pages: 754
Weight: 2.16
Height: 1.96 Width: 5.73 Depth: 8.92
Language: English
Like other great figures of 20th-century American politics, Lyndon Johnson defies easy understanding. An unrivaled master of vote swapping, back room deals, and election-day skulduggery, he was nevertheless an outspoken New Dealer with a genuine commitment to the poor and the underprivileged. With aides and colleagues he could be overbearing, crude, and vindictive, but at other times shy, sophisticated, and magnanimous. Perhaps columnist Russell Baker said it best: Johnson was a character out of a Russian novel...a storm of warring human instincts: sinner and saint, buffoon and statesman, cynic and sentimentalist.
But Johnson was also a representative figure. His career speaks volumes about American politics, foreign policy, and business in the forty years after 1930. As Charles de Gaulle said when he came to JFK's funeral: Kennedy was America's mask, but this man Johnson is the country's real face.
In Lone Star Rising, Robert Dallek, winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize for his study of Franklin D. Roosevelt, now turns to this fascinating sinner and saint to offer a brilliant, definitive portrait of a great American politician. Based on seven years of research in over 450 manuscript collections and oral histories, as well as numerous personal interviews, this first book in a two-volume biography follows Johnson's life from his childhood on the banks of the Pedernales to his election as vice-president under Kennedy. We see Johnson, the twenty-three-year-old aide to a pampered millionaire Representative, become a de facto Congressman, and at age twenty-eight the country's best state director of the National Youth Administration. We see Johnson, the human dynamo, first in the House and then in the Senate, whirl his way through sixteen- and eighteen-hour days, talking, urging, demanding, reaching for influence and power, in an uncommonly successful congressional career.
Dallek pays full due to Johnson's failings--his obsession with being top dog, his willingness to cut corners, and worse, to get there-- but he also illuminates Johnson's sheer brilliance as a politician, the high regard in which key members of the New Deal, including FDR, held him, and his genuine concern for minorities and the downtrodden.
No president in American history is currently less admired than Lyndon Johnson. Bitter memories of Vietnam have sent Johnson's reputation into free fall, and recent biographies have painted him as a scoundrel who did more harm than good. Lone Star Rising attempts to strike a balance. It does not neglect the tawdry side of Johnson's political career, including much that is revealed for the first time. But it also reminds us that Lyndon Johnson was a man of exceptional vision, who from early in his career worked to bring the South into the mainstream of American economic and political life, to give the disadvantaged a decent chance, and to end racial segregation for the well-being of the nation.
In Lone Star Rising, Robert Dallek, winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize for his study of Franklin D. Roosevelt, now turns to this fascinating sinner and saint to offer a brilliant, definitive portrait of a great American politician. Based on seven years of research in over 450 manuscript collections and oral histories, as well as numerous personal interviews, this first book in a two-volume biography follows Johnson's life from his childhood on the banks of the Pedernales to his election as vice-president under Kennedy. We see Johnson, the twenty-three-year-old aide to a pampered millionaire Representative, become a de facto Congressman, and at age twenty-eight the country's best state director of the National Youth Administration. We see Johnson, the human dynamo, first in the House and then in the Senate, whirl his way through sixteen- and eighteen-hour days, talking, urging, demanding, reaching for influence and power, in an uncommonly successful congressional career.
Dallek pays full due to Johnson's failings--his obsession with being top dog, his willingness to cut corners, and worse, to get there-- but he also illuminates Johnson's sheer brilliance as a politician, the high regard in which key members of the New Deal, including FDR, held him, and his genuine concern for minorities and the downtrodden.
No president in American history is currently less admired than Lyndon Johnson. Bitter memories of Vietnam have sent Johnson's reputation into free fall, and recent biographies have painted him as a scoundrel who did more harm than good. Lone Star Rising attempts to strike a balance. It does not neglect the tawdry side of Johnson's political career, including much that is revealed for the first time. But it also reminds us that Lyndon Johnson was a man of exceptional vision, who from early in his career worked to bring the South into the mainstream of American economic and political life, to give the disadvantaged a decent chance, and to end racial segregation for the well-being of the nation.
Also in
Historical Figures
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich
Metaxas, Eric
Paperback
$11.99
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
$10.99
The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution
Wegman, Jesse
Hardcover
$27.00
The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel: Romanovs, Revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan Who Fueled the World
Brunt, Douglas
Hardcover
$28.80
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
$26.60
Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours
Onuf, Peter S.
Cogliano, Francis D.
Hardcover
$26.99
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown
Foster, Ann
Hardcover
$29.69
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
Boom, Corrie Ten
Sherrill, John
Paperback
From $4.99
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
$37.99
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
Strauss, Gwen
Paperback
$19.00
A Thousand Shall Fall: The Electrifying Story of a Soldier and His Family Who Dared to Practice Their Faith in Hitler's Germany
Mundy, Susi Hasel
Paperback
$16.14
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
$33.24
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War
Bell, Jason
Hardcover
$31.34
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
Brunt, Douglas
Paperback
$18.99
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
$23.74
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Bourdain, Anthony
Paperback
$17.09
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paperback
$18.04
The Confessions of Samuel Pepys: Private Revelations from Britain's Most Famed Diarist
de la Bédoyère, Guy
Hardcover
$31.50
The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
Rosen, Jeffrey
Paperback
$19.00
Solo and Together: Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an Enigmatic Life and Marriage
Hansen, James R.
Hardcover
$38.00
American Prometheus (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Oppenheimer
Sherwin, Martin J.
Bird, Kai
Paperback
From $14.99
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
Beals, Melba Pattillo
Paperback
From $7.99
Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection
Faber, Toby
Paperback
$19.00
The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Luzzatto, Sergio
Hardcover
$31.50
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Paperback
$18.04
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Hardcover
$66.50
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
$34.99
The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
Molloy, J. T.
Donohue, John Chick
Paperback
$18.04
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Paperback
$22.80
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
From $9.99
Tomboy Bride, 50th Anniversary Edition: One Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West
Backus, Harriet Fish
Paperback
$18.04
Miracles in American History, Volume Two: Amazing Faith That Shaped the Nation: Adapted from William J. Federer's American Minute [With 2 Paperbacks]
Federer, Susie
Federer, William J.
Paperback
$19.00
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
Von Drehle, David
Paperback
$18.04
The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century
Harrington, Joel F.
Paperback
$19.95
Master of the Senate (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Caro, Robert A.
Paperback
From $14.99
The Forsaken Founder: Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot Who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up to Slavery, and Survived the Reign of Terror
Greenberger, Scott S.
Hardcover
$28.50
The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President
Collinsworth, Eden
Hardcover
$27.00
The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters: The Tragic and Glamorous Lives of Jackie and Lee
Kashner, Sam
Schoenberger, Nancy
Paperback
$19.99