Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful read and a vindication for Robert Caro
Review: What a wonderful read this book is. If you like sprawling, colorful histories and biographies by the likes of Barbara Tuchman, William Manchester, David McCullough, etc., you will love what Robert Caro is doing with Lyndon Johnson.This third volume is also a vindication of Caro, who took a real beating from the critics with Volume 2, who said that he painted a decidedly and unfairly dark portrait. Volume 3 shows where he was going all along, with his thesis of the war between compassion and ambition in Johnson's soul. I can't wait for the final volume, to hear Caro tell the story of the Greek tragedy of Johnson's final years, with their great triumphs and even greater failures.
Rating: 
Summary: A Man Without True Beliefs
Review: Caro's latest installment is every bit as good as the first two volumes. The first portion of the book dealing with the history of the senate may be a little dry, but this background information is absolutely critical in understanding Johnson's monumental task of reforming the seniority system and avoiding filibusters. Once again, Caro takes large volumes of information and makes it easy for the reader to retain. For example, he uses the term, "The three R's" to describe Johnson's mentoring by key figures such as FDR, Sam Rayburn, and Richard Russell. While the book is very objective, I believe the reader is left with a sense of a man without any true beliefs. Caro demonstrates this by explaining that Johnson's ambition always took precedence over any sense of right and wrong. Civil rights only become a Johnson priority as he realizes he cannot win the presidency as a regional southern candidate. Support for public power helped Johnson in his first congressional session, but this ideal was quickly abandoned when he realized to maintain power he needed the support of rich, Texas oilmen. I highly recommend this book. The reader will learn the inner workings of the senate, the struggle for civil rights, and most importantly to coin a Caro term, "How power reveals".
Rating:
Summary: Can't Give Caro Less than Five Stars, but...
Review: I have read all of Caro's books and eagerly looked forward to this one. However, I found it something of a let-down after the first two LBJ books. True, it's a masterly analysis of the legislative process, but that's precisely why I felt disappointed. The earlier LBJ volumes focused on Johnson's personal development and his campaigns. Caro was able to integrate into that material very evocative descriptions of the milieu in which Johnson matured. I find Texas in the 30s vastly more picturesque than Washington in the 50s. Caro does depart from the Washington scene to describe the civil rights struggle, but he doesn't bring any new vision to it, nothing we would miss by reading only Taylor Branch's work, for example. In fact, the most riveting section of this book is the portrait of Richard Russell, a mini-biography in itself. As for Caro's treatment of Johnson in this volume, I found unconvincing his attempt to credit Johnson with idealism as well as political calculation in passing a civil rights bill. One can't deny that this book is another Caro masterpiece, but it will appeal mostly to Congressional aficionados. I expect the next volume, dealing with the 1960 presidential campaign, will be more interesting, and I lament the long wait for it I expect we'll have to endure.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the Three Volumes
Review: After reading all 1,040 pages of this biography cum political history there is something to be said for the book. Richard Caro does not admire LBJ. But there is much not to like about LBJ. In the worst way he was deceitful, manipulative, crude, selfish, cowardly, and dishonest, however he was also smart, a very hard worker, willing to make sacrifices to serve ambition, a student of human nature and thrived on politics. He knew what he had to do to get power and, when he had power, he knew how to use it. Caro's research is thorough yet he does not get lost in minutia. There is not a dull page in this tome. For an historian he has a smooth, if not elegant, writing style - reminiscent of David McCullough or Doris Kerns Goodwin.
While this book covers only about 12 years of Johnson's life, it is rich in politics and history. For each biographical episode Caro sets the historical foundation to better understand the flow, the impact and importance of events. A compelling example of this concerns civil rights legislation. Caro does not limit his investigation to the weeks and months preceding the passage of the voting registration law of 1957, rather he goes back to Reconstruction and gives an historical thread up to the 1950's just to get the proper perspective. In this connection, LBJ for years stood with the South and shamelessly blocked civil rights legislation - doing do as a Senator, as minority leader and then as majority leader. It was at the 1956 Democratic convention that he got a rude awakening. He sincerely believed that he had a respectable chance at the nomination for president. It was there he learned that in the eyes of the rest of the country he was just another southern bigot. For the 1960 presidential run he would have to change that image by becoming a champion of civil rights. In executing this turn-around and orchestrating the passage of the first civil rights bill in 72 years Johnson's performance is truly masterful. History and personal ambition came together to serve the county. You can take the last 200 pages of this book alone and sell a 100,000 copies!
Rating:
Summary: A worthy successor to Caro's prior masterpieces
Review: Having just finished reading late last night (this one kept me up way past my bedtime several times over the last two weeks), I am still in the grip of this wonderful, spellbinding book. Not only is it a worthy successor to the prize-winning first two volumes of Caro's biographical project on LBJ, I think it is the best of the three. The skillful weaving together of multitudinous sources and the extraordinary drama of the events covered in this volume guarantee an extraordinary page-turner. Don't be daunted by the length; if anything, it will seem too short, especially when you are reading the last few chapters and wishing it wouldn't end abruptly with the end of LBJ's Senate career. (If I had any criticism, it would be that the years after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 seem to be covered with a bit less depth, the author having concentrated his greatest energies on depicting that epic struggle. But, of course, had he covered 1958-60 in comparable depth in this volume, the whole would have required an additional few hundred pages.)
My big concern now is whether Caro will be able to finish the task, for there is so much left to go, particularly the 1960 presidential election, the assassination of JFK and aftermath, the whole epic struggle enacting the extraordinary domestic programs of the Great Society, and Vietnam! On this scale of detail, that's probably three volumes to get us through the 1960s. I hope Caro will consider apprenticing a younger historian to work with him and to carry forward if he is unable to complete the task.
Rating:
Summary: The master of the Senate by a master of political biography
Review: Some people wait with eager anticipation for the arrival of the next "Star Wars" film. I wait for the next mammoth instalment in Robert Caro's outstanding biography of Lyndon Johnson. Reading any volume of Caro's biography is an event and the third volume, which deals with Johnson's years as a US Senator from Texas, is excellent. Caro continues with his theme of how Lyndon Johnson's unrelenting quest for political power led him to come to dominate the most conservative, elitist branch of US government over the space of a few short years. As anyone who has read the previous volumes will know, Johnson's methods were no less audacious, conniving and breathtakingly blatant as in the earlier stages of his career. Caro documents Johnson's service in the Senate in detail, but not before he has provided the reader with a comprehensive history of the institution itself and of some of the principal players, like Georgia's stately Richard B. Russell, who would play integral roles in Johnson's continued rise to power. Such studies are, however, essential if the reader is to get a true understanding of just how amazing Johnson's rapid rise to power was and he used it to secure passage of the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. As with Caro's previous books, the research is outstanding in its detail and the writing is enthralling in its style. This book is not so much a political biography as a saga of one man's acquisition and manipulation of political power. At over 1100 pages, newcomers to Caro's work may well be put off. However, they should not be discouraged - the book is almost as "un-put-downable" as a bestselling thriller. "Master of the Senate" continues the pattern set by Robert Caro in his two previous volumes. As I have said in my reviews of those two works, this is political biography at its absolute finest and I recommend it without any hesitation whatsoever. Now, to start counting the days to the next instalment....
Rating: 
Summary: LBJ: MURDERER OF A GENERATION
Review: I find Mr. Caro's attempts to redeem this Democrat monster to be reprehensible. So what if he passed "Civil Rights" legislation? Most of those laws have done more harm than good. The so-called "Great Society" programs he created were socialist visions that bankrupted the national treasury and have yet to be fully repealed. Johnson should be remembered as the moron who prosecuted the Vietnam War to an absurd length, destroying a generation of American males (whom no one seems to care about these days) and damaging the unity of our nation.
Rating:
Summary: The rules of the game
Review: Robert Caro's latest volume on the career of Lyndon Johnson is a fascinating warts and all study of the uses of parliamentary power. Even though this is meant to be a picture of the Senate in the 1950s, I would imagine anyone wishing to understand the workings of this institution will find this book useful. This is due to the subject of Caro's efforts, who undeerstand the workings of the senate better than probably anyone in its history. This is a well-researched book, which along with Robert Dallek's two volumes, is likely to set the standard for LBJ biographies in the years to come. Caro has done his homework and the portraits of Johnson, as well as other members of the senate are intelligent and well-researched. Even though this book is about a president (this period will be covered in future books)it redresses an inbalance in the way Americans view their history, which is almost exclusively through the administrations of its presidents. Books which deal with the career of senators, representatives, or federal judges, are not published to a sufficiently wide-enough audience. As a consequence, the mainstream tends to view its achievements (and failings) as the responsibility of the executive, quite the opposite of how things actually work or how the founding fathers intend things to work. Hopefully this book, which has been justly successful, will lead to a restoration in balance in this area. Even though I gave this book a five star rating, I should alert any potential readers to a flaw that runs through all of the books that Caro has written. This is a seeming unwillingness to concede what a dirty business politics is. In all of the books, Caro makes comparisons with other people who encountered LBJ through the years and these comparisons reflect poorly on Johnson. The problem is that none of the people that are cited went on to become Majority leader (and a powerful one at that) or President. In discussing LBJ's views on matters such as race and what he was willing to do about this issue, a better comparison would be someone like FDR. Caro also should have consulted Kenneth Davis's books on FDR, particularly the one covering 1937-40 (even though they do not deal with the period in question-the bibliography includes books which do not deal with the 1950s-era Senate) Politics is the art of the possible after all. I think that perhaps the one thing that is missing and would make my praise unqualified is to put LBJ's actions in the context of others seeking to get ahead in politics. Some of the more extreme examples of LBJ's behavior might not seem so strange as a result.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Read
Review: Having watched the movie on HBO about Johnson and the Vietnam war, I was interested in the phase of Johnson's life revealed in "Master of the Senate" by Robert Caro, focusing on Johnson as a Democratic senator. What a political animal he was, how interesting reading this book is, delving into what went on behind the scenes, all the politicking that took place, the personality displayed by Johnson, the flaws depicted. A wonderfully facinating read.
Rating:
Summary: An absorbing biography, but flawed
Review: Robert Caro's "Master of the Senate" details the rise of the Texas senator Lyndon Baines Johnson, from an obscure congressman who won his state's senate seat through very questionable means to a Majority Leader whose power and ability to maneuver legislation through the hallowed institution were virtually unrivaled. Caro's narrative shows several interesting sides of LBJ as senate Majority Leader: 1) LBJ was no bigot, but was hardly a champion for the downtrodden and the oppressed, 2) LBJ was in some ways a "compassionate" man, but ambition always overrode compassion when the two came into conflict, 3) LBJ owed his rise to preeminence through ingratiating himself with "the three R's"-FDR, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, and powerful Georgia senator Richard B. Russell, and 4) the Civil Rights Act of 1957, so-oftened hailed as LBJ's legislative triumph in outmaneuvering conservatives, was actually a watered-down and ineffective law passed with the tacit approval of the Dixiecrats. Caro contends that while power may or may not corrupt, it certainly does reveal, and LBJ's time as Majority Leader show a shrewd, ambitious, and political man who never forgot individuals who crossed him and used his power to punish accordingly. In this sense, Caro did an incredible job of offering readers a portrait of a man and his time. One flaw I find with this book is the absence of footnotes. While Caro does cite his sources, the absence of footnotes made it difficult for this reader to reference or crosscheck his sources.
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