Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as I expected.
Review: Having read Robert Caro's other 2 books on Lyndon Johnson and having anticipated the 3rd book for so long, I was very disappointed in this one.
I found it a burden toget through.
Dry and lacking the vitality of the previous 2.
Parts were very interesting and I certainly learnt a lot about your history of the senate but overall I think it lacked the human touch.
However it won't stop me anticipating the Presidential Years because LBJ comes across as a very interesting human being and I look forward to the next installment.
Rating: 
Summary: Masterful
Review: MASTER OF THE SENATE was one of the best books I have ever read. I read the book this summer and chose not to write this review for a few months to reflect on that thought for a while. It's true. This is the perfect meeting of an inherently fascinating figure (Lyndon Johnson) with a masterful researcher and writer (Caro) through the vehicle of an important yet under-examined period of American history. So much has been written about Johnson that a thousand-page biography has a massive challenge in just offering something new. Caro meets this challenge in several ways: First, the book is as much about the U.S. Senate as it is about Johnson himself. I am aware of no other book that focuses on the Senate in the 1950s, and in that way alone this book is highly original. Second, Caro returns to the form he perfected in THE PATH TO POWER by delving into detail so precise that 1000 pages are necessary to get the whole story out. A lesser work containing the same information would be dull, but Caro's craft is finding beauty in detail. His first Johnson biography achieves beauty - it really changed the way biographies are written - in more than 800 pages devoted to Johnson's early life. With MASTER OF THE SENATE Caro again creates a story written well enough to be enjoyed for its writing alone. I suppose he could write a gripping stiory about just about anyone or any thing, but given Johnson's personality, accomplishments, contradictions and drama-quality, Caro had the perfect subject to apply his talents. This is a tremendous relief after 1990's disappointing MEANS OF ASCENT. In that book, Caro makes the most of his story telling skills, but the story he tells is misleading and too black and white. The Johnson of that book is to villainous, his rival, Coke Stevenson, actually a right-wing racist good-old-boy governor, too angelic. The preface of MEANS OF ASCENT describes a thrilling scene from Johnson's presidency for balance, to set up a "light" and "dark" thread analogy as an excuse why the story that follows is so very one sided. Not so with MASTER OF THE SENATE. Caro's Johnson emerges as far more complex, far more gray than the character in his earlier book. Occasionally, Caro may go a little too far in drawing attention to Johnson's good side. As if smarting from criticisms of his MEANS OF ASCENT, Caro occasionally stops the narrative to explain how this or that act of Johnson was so very, very, very important for the future of the free world. Caro doesn't need to do that - the story speaks for itself. MASTER OF THE SENATE contains several mini-biographies of other figures, such as Richard Russell and Hubert Humprey who play important parts in the larger story. The book's first hundred pages is not about Johnson at all, but a history of the Senate up to the time Johnson entered it. Again, a lesser author would have botched this. Instead of being distracting, these side stories are engrossing and help establish the richness of the whole work. Strom Thurmond doesn't get his own mini-biography, but as the last member of the Senate still in office from the time of this story, he serves as sort of a yardstick measuring how far we've come. Thurmond was one of the mist virulent racists in a Senate largely controlled by virulent racists. After one particularly venomous speech, one arch-segregationist commented that "Strom really believes this [racist] stuff." The comment is striking especially in the wake of the recent controversy over Trent Lott's comments. The implication seems to be that the one segregationist Senator more or less felt compelled to race-bait for political reasons, which Thurmond was a true believer. This makes the praise he has received for "overcoming" his prejudices now that he's 100 (and African Americans can vote) somewhat suspect. It also makes Lott's apology suspect - would today's "master of the senate" preferred to have been elected 50 years earlier? If he was, which side of the great 1957 Civil Rights Bill battle would he have been on? If this seems like a digression, it is meant more to be a reflection on how a serious history like MASTER OF THE SENATE has real relevance for contemporary citizens. It is not only a good book and an interesting story - it is an important source of civic information. It took Caro 12 years between his last book and this, but after reading MASTER OF THE SENATE I can hardly wait for his next one.
Rating:
Summary: Praise for Caro and Lang
Review: Stephen Lang's reading of the Master of the Senate is a model for audio books. His many, convincing voices bring the characters to life thus enriching the story. Coupled with the Caro's careful prose, the Master of the Senate audio book is a rare -- and highly 'hearable' -- treat.
Rating:
Summary: Winner of the National Book Award , 2002 Nonficition
Review: According to the words printed on an award given to Mr. Caro by the National Book Foundation, just before he won the National Book Award in Non-Fiction for 2002:
"Robert Caro raises biography to high art by melding a novelist's eye for character with a historians's meticulous quest for fact. In immaculate prose, Caro renders Johnson's wily (and occasionally monstrous) maneuvers to power while giving readers a fascinating lesson in how the Senate actally works. This riveting story also profoundly informs the history of civil rights in America." I totally agree.Congratulations Mr. Caro!
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and a Pot-Boiler Too!
Review: Anybody who believes non-fiction is dull whould read Cato's LBJ series. This reads like a novel and is packed with information about events that have led to our world today. Having come of age in the sixties, this book puts a perspective on what made up the world I grew up in. Cato takes the time to build a background for influential people such as Richard Russell who, although unknown by most people under forty, provide a prequel to the events of the sixties.
Rating:
Summary: Another Masterpeice
Review: Caro's work is amazing - again. Just as with the first two volumes of the life of Lyndon Johnson, Master of the Senate is a page turning epic, this time focusing on the United States Senate in the 1950s. Caro's description of Johnson's meteoric rise demonstrates the subject's brilliance in, first the attainment, and then the use, of power. One also comes away with the the unavoidable impression that this use of power was, primarily, for personal purposes. Johnson is not a likeable character in any of the author's three volumes. Liar, cheater, overly sensitive, obsessed, cold, unfeeling, mean-spirited (read how he treats Lady Bird), all of these descriptions are appropriate. You might think that Caro does not like his subject and is tainted in his analysis. However, when you consider the amount of work and research that went into this offering, as well as the other volumes, it is hard to challenge the author's motivation or analysis. The three volumes taken together, to my mind, constitute the most thoroughly researched work on any political figure in American political history. Do not be put off by the massiveness of the work. Unless you have a pretty open schedule it will take you sometime to get through the more than one thousand pages, but it is thoroughly enjoyable from cover to cover. The writing is as good as the research. And it is not just Johnson. Caro's mini-biography of Senator Russell of Georgia, which continues throughout the pages, is brilliant. His history of the Senate and its great figures, including Clay, Calhoun and Webster, which puts Johnson's actions into context, might be the single best part of the book (don't skip over it). There is so much included in Master of the Senate, all of it worthwhile. I have not even mentioned the focus of the second half of the book featuring Johnson's efforts at passage of the Civil Rights Act. When you think of Johnson at the end of his career, bumbling his way through the Vietnam War disaster and sadly announcing his withdrawal from the 1968 Presidential race, you forget that he was one of the greatest politicians of the 20th Century. Not after you read this account. I can not recommend Master of the Senate enough.
Rating: 
Summary: "Master of Senate", the audio cassette
Review: The epic quality of Caro's works on Johnson makes them a particularly satisfying listening experience. The only negative here is the usual with talking books: neither the author, nor the publisher (in this instance Random House), not to speak of the producer of the recording paid much attention to getting pronunciation spot on. For example: Uvalde, home of Vice President John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner is rendered as "U-vald"... in lieu of the correct "U-vald-ee".
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of US Political History
Review: There is a lot more to this book than just the amazing story of LBJs first 10 years in the Senate - there is also an amazing history of the U.S. Senate from colonial times to World War II, a history of the civil rights movement from the Civil War to the mid-60s, and an amazing synopsis of complicated Senate rules and procedures necessary to understanding the legislative genius that was Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. And Caro delivers these "extra" lessons in a compelling style that keeps the pages turning as fast as a fiction thriller. In fact, some of the aspects of LBJ's tenure in the Senate seems stranger than fiction, given how many amazing coincidences (in addition to the stolen election of '48) made his rise to national prominence possible. Woven throughout the story are deep psychilogical insights into who LBJ really was - an insecure yet overachieving workaholic who made it to the top without any real ties (as compared to JFK, whose irrelevance in the Senate becomes clear) other than the ones he created. You will grin at the personal relationships LBJ builds - first, finding out WHO matters, then learning WHAT matters to that person, and then BECOMING it - with Sam Rayburn, with Richard Russell, with whoever had the juice. Caro spells out the magic of Johnson's quick mastery of the Senate - he bacame Minority Leader after only two years, and Majority Leader two years later - and he elevated the position of Majority Leader from a Waterloo for prior Leaders into nearly co-equality with President Eisenhower. What were his motivations? Caro makes clear that the thirst for power - and the quest for the White House - may have given LBJ all the drive he needed - suggesting that his eventual leadership on civil rights was nothing more than part of his realization that he would need northern support to ever be President. LBJ used the Texas oil interests to get his financial backings (watch as he singlehandedly derails a worthy FEC nomination just because it would limit profits to oilmen to mere billions) and used the Southern coalition to get his foothold in the Senate (watch how his early speeches towed the Southern line on segregation), and then used the Senate to get national fame (watch his Korean War oversight committee make more headlines than progress). Yet he was a genius with his ability to foresee 8 moves ahead into power's lap. The story of the 1956 presidential nomination, and LBJs abortive effort for it, was almost amusing as a splash of cold water on an ego that went unchecked in the Senate - Caro vividly describes his cruelty to staff and other disloyal Senators in a way that makes you cringe - yet chuckle - as you watch this MACHINE gather up and then use power like none other before or since him. And the story of his 9th inning passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 - an almost impossible feat of compromise and persuasion, even if the bill was hollow - is priceless. This book should be mandatory reading for any student of fan of modern politics. I just cannot wait 12 years to get to Part IV so Mr. Caro, if you are reading, PLEASE hurry! What an amazing book.
Rating:
Summary: Slow torture
Review: How dare Robert Caro make us wait eleven years for this masterpiece? With such brilliant prose he leaves us breathless awaiting the next installment . . . and at the rate Caro writes, holding your breath is not a great idea. If it takes a thousand-plus pages to track LBJ through his Senate years, how many thousands will be required to get Caro's inside stories of how LBJ narrowly lost the presidential nomination, then attained the vice presidency, ascended to the throne one black day, plotted Goldwater's demise, engineered two Civil Rights bills that once and for all laid waste to his Old South, fell into and relentlessly prosecuted the Vietnam horror, gave us Medicare and the Great Society, elected not to run in '68 -- not to mention his feud with Robert Kennedy, his ongoing associations with JFK's best and brightest, and LBJ's own final days? I fear that either Caro or I shall not live so long to see his next work. With Caro's talent for ferreting inside truths, he has enough material remaining for ten more multi-hundred-page books; perhaps he will favor us with one every year or so. Master of the Senate is hands down the greatest U.S. political biography ever penned. And the best may be yet to come.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book About American Government
Review: Even the outstanding scholarship and writing in Caro's previous LBJ volumes did not prepare me for the transcendent prose that Caro maintains over more than 1,000 pages. Like Caro, the reader emerges both admiring and despising LBJ for his politics, his ruthlessness and his loathesome personality. The passages regarding the 1957 Civil Rights Act rise to the level of epic poetry. This is a masterful book.
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