Rachelfm's Reviews > The Path to Power

Where is my ten-star function when I need it? I have been waiting all year to pick up a fantastic non-fiction book, something along the lines of Taylor Branch's civil rights trilogy, "The Warmth of Other Suns," "Mayflower," "The Beauty and the Sorrow," or "Behind the Beautiful Forevers." I'm going to echo the words of another reviewer who describes reading this series as one of the greatest pleasures of his reading life.

I selected this book because I've long been interested in LBJ's largely-overlooked role as a great Civil Rights president. The beginning of his presidency is subsumed by the Kennedy assassination (let's face it, our most famous photo of LBJ is taking the oath on Air Force One with a brain-splattered Jackie Kennedy looking on) and the end is completely overshadowed by his monomaniacal mismanagement of the Vietnam War. As someone born years after American troops left Vietnam, it's been hard to see LBJ as more than a cartoonish bumbler whose presidency moved in lockstep with chaos, mistrust of government and social revolution of the 1960s; someone who missed a giant opportunity to shepherd the US through great social change.

To someone thinking about reading this book, set aside what you know about LBJ and buckle up for an enthralling character study set against an absolutely jaw-dropping backdrop. I didn't expect to be so taken with Texas, but Caro's thorough and compelling descriptions of life in the Hill Country are moving in their desperation and medieval character. LBJ's character as a child and as a student are fascinating. Parts of the book read like a manual for some goofy dork to become the Big Man on campus. LBJ is so calculating and so capable at outthinking everyone around him; it's mesmerizing. Even in retrospect, his motives and morals can seem impossible to decipher, except that again and again the ideal that governs his every move is how to maximize his own power and influence.

There are so many great little historical close calls: the August 1941 vote to renew the draft; the Texas Senate race that LBJ bought but didn't win and the IRS investigation thereafter. A chilling aspect of this history is how Johnson used his influence to win the first big government contract for Brown & Root to for the biggest hydroelectric project in Texas history. While the social implications of rural electrification were among the most touching passages of the book, the politicking and legal sleight-of-hand that went into the contract for the Marshall Ford were just grody harbingers of the profiteering and cozy government contracts that the unholy trifecta of Halliburton/KBR/future Texas politicians would create. That section of the book isn't called, "LBJ: Midwife to Satan" but when you know how things have gone down since then, it's pretty cringeworthy.

I have very little original thought to add to the scores of reviewers who describe the majesty of Caro's reportage and the beauty of the prose. I do think that I learned more about U.S. political history reading this book than I did in any political science class in college. Of course now I've got a huge crush on Sam Rayburn and kind of need to read a 3000 page multivolume saga about HIM, so I'm sure that all my regular followers will be watching for that with bated breath.

Worth EVERY penny of my overdue library book fine!