President Johnson's War on Poverty: Rhetoric and History

Rating:
Summary: Quite the Treatment
Review: David Zarefsky's book offers readers an opportunity to examine the connection between speeches and their rhetorical situations. Through his insightful and clear prose, Zarefsky traces not just the events that Johnson grappled with during his five years as president, but how those events were shaped by Johnson's own words.

Johnson, in securing short-term advantages with his earlier speeches, ends up weakening his future rhetorical possibilities. By declaring "war" on poverty and mustering executive clout behind broad visions, with little regard to specific detail and possibility, Johnson's early speeches sets the policy bar too high and consequently makes the liklihood of success too low. As a result, later speeches are delivered in an atmoshere marred by failure and retreat--forcing Johnson's words and policy into an empty advance, and ultimatly leads to bitter defeat. Far from just your average "Guns vs. Butter" thesis, Zarefsky makes bold and trenchant claims admirably buttressed with salient detail and scholarly dignity. Zarefsky's book makes a noble companion-work to other books in the ever-enlarging Johnson canon--easily surpassing the more anecedotal account of Califano and the spuriously supported Beschloss dime-store volumes.

Always well regared in academic circles, Zarefsky's book earns him a rightful place in the Pantheon of popular Presidential Scholars, right alongside Schlessinger, White, and Wicker. It would behoove all to make room on their bookeshelves and in their minds for this apropos work, which reminds us, in these days of heigtened hostility and rhetoric, how very vital words are in shaping reality and society. Hats off DZ!

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre historical work
Review: The book does a so-so job of detailing President Johnson's War on Poverty, especially in regards to administration and how little rhetoric matched reality. Not anything special or great, but a decent history on the topic in everyday language, not scholarly prose.