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Title: Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960 by Robert Dallek ISBN: 0-19-507904-3 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: September, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.16 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.89 (9 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Not Enough Personality
Comment: Robert Dallek has the right idea about LBJ. In his forward, he addresses the problems with villifying him, and sets out to do him justice. In this he succeeds. But LBJ does not come alive in Dallek's work, as he does in Caro's. Despite good intentions, Dallek disappoints.
Rating: 3
Summary: Presenting the good Lyndon
Comment: Dallek's biography has the virtue of being written by someone who clearly admires Johnson. As such, it is somewhat of a counterweight to Robert Caro and I suggest both be read for balance.
Nevertheless, in presenting the "good Lyndon", Dallek downplays the worst of Johnson. There is nothing particularly wrong with this (Dallek certainly doesn't ignore the flaws, just tends to gloss over them a little), but it does lead to a fairly tepid book, one that is nowhere near as much fun to read as Caro's. Thus, if I could only read one (which of course many readers will do considering the length of both Caro's and Dallek's presentations), I would read Caro's. Caro's second and third volumes (covering the 40's and 50's, roughly the second half of the Dallek volume being discussed here) are possibly the best political biography ever written. It is against that "competition" that Dallek's book must be weighed and I found, in the balance, that Dallek's work is merely ordinary.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Landmark LBJ Biography
Comment: Dallek's two-volume examination of LBJ is a dramatic and nuanced examination of one the most complex figures in 20th century American history. Even almost three decades after his death, there are no shortage of people who see LBJ as the ultimate villan of American politics. Many people of this camp dislike Dallek's work, because he puts his subject in his context.
While Dallek does not excuse the sort of election fraud in which LBJ engaged, he does explain that it was wide spread. Some find this an unacceptable defense, but one should note that the sorts of tricks he describes have been wide spread in the US for most of the 19th and early 20th century. To dismiss LBJ for engaging in such activities who require similar condemnation of every US president from Adams to FDR.
Dallek in fact, is unflinching in discussing LBJ's negative side. His pension for strong arming opponents, his abuse of his staff, his womanizing and drinking, and his dirty tricks are all layed bare. At the same time, Dallek reviews how crucial LBJ was as part of the New Deal and his brave role as a champion of civil rights.
The other major LBJ biography by Caro is far less balanced in its approach to this complex and ultimately tragic figure. For a truly great and complete biography of LBJ, I suggest that you read this one.
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Title: Flawed Giant: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1960-1973 by Robert Dallek ISBN: 0195054652 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek ISBN: 0316172383 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents by Robert Dallek ISBN: 0195145828 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945: With a New Afterword (Oxford Paperbacks) by Robert Dallek ISBN: 0195097327 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 1995 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade by Jeff Shesol ISBN: 0393318559 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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