LBJ: A Life [Hardcover]

Irwin Unger (Author), Debi Unger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1999

From a Pulitzer prize-winning writer, the only single-volume biography of the towering yet enigmatic leader--from his humble origins to his rise to America's highest office. Flawed as a human being, Lyndon Johnson was a towering public figure of his era, a man whose social programs changed America in profound ways. In this compelling new biography, Irwin and Debi Unger explore the political and personal influences that made Johnson such an unpredictable, charismatic, and difficult man, depicting his life as a constant tension between political expediency and doing the right thing for Americans.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers familiar with the original, exciting research of LBJ biographers Robert Caro (working on volume three for Knopf), Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ronnie Dugger and Robert Dallek will find this volume derivative, if accessible. Historian Irwin Unger (The Greenback Era, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1965) and Debi Unger (coauthor of America in the 20th Century) seem to be neither pro-Johnson nor anti-Johnson. Their main concern is to give an accurate chronology of LBJ's career, which they do. The authors capture LBJ's hell-raising Texas childhood and adolescence, his surprising ascent from backwater schoolteacher to ruthless politician, his domination of the U.S. Senate, his elevation to the White House after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his passionate advocacy of a Great Society, the Vietnam War, his downfall, his restless postpresidential life until his death in 1973, his complicated marriage to Lady Bird, his womanizing and much more. While the authors emphasize that, throughout his life, LBJ struggled to balance the often tawdry practicalities of politics with his more elevated commitment to social justice, they shy away from making a definitive judgment on LBJ's performance. Their own performance is adequate and well-written, but only a strongly articulated assessment of LBJ would have distinguished this book from other biographies. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Few authors have attempted a one-volume life of the idealistic but controversial Lyndon B. Johnson, and none has succeeded like Irwin Unger (The Best of Intentions, LJ 4/1/96) and Debi Unger. This engaging, well-researched biography draws on many of the recent fine works of the Johnson years, notably Robert Dallek's Flawed Giant (LJ 3/15/98) and Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-64 (S. & S., 1997), edited by Michael Beschloss. The Ungers synthesize these and other works to portray LBJ as a president driven to help people but victimized by his own pathologiesAa need for constant approval, an abusive temper, and a probable mood disorder. Johnson the moderate always felt under attack by Republicans and also by the powerful conservative and liberal factions of his own Democratic Party. His greatest victories brought on personal elation along with a depressing sense of urgency. The Ungers do not include a summation of Johnson's mixed legacy but conclude with a bittersweet account of his four postpresidential years. Highly recommended for academic and most public libraries.AKarl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471176028
• ISBN-13: 978-0471176022
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,339,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sympathetic but incomplete, August 1, 2000

By 

Candace Scott (Lake Arrowhead, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: LBJ: A Life (Hardcover)

If you want a quick, easy read on LBJ and don't want many minute details, this is the book for you. It is written in a breezy and readable style, but the research and footnotes here are haphazard, at best. If you want a more scholarly, reliable look at Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro and Robert Dalleck have written the much superior works.

However, this biography does illuminate LBJ's private life quite well and throws additional light on his complicated relationship with Lady Bird. It is also refreshing to see a sympathetic biography of Johnson, who has been pilloried for Vietnam and never given the credit he deserves as the greatest civil rights President in American history.

This is a good introduction for students of LBJ and will hopefully spur people on to read in greater depth about his flawed giant of a man.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A tolerable one volume, full-life bio., September 14, 2002

By 

James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LBJ: A Life (Paperback)

But not only does this book suffer the fate of any one-volume biography, that of being neccessarily incomplete, but it also is rather sloppily written, at least by the standards of academic works. It has about as many instances of trivial sloppinesses, such as "He tried outfor the baseball team..." or The new student activism was a electric shock..." as I'd expect to see in a mass-market paperback, mistakes which I'm much less willing to accept in a book like this one.

A far superior biography of Johnson can be found in Rober Dallek's two-volume set, "Lone Star Rising" and "Flawed Giant".

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive One-Volume Biography of LBJ, May 15, 2000

By 

Scott Pfost (Bristow, Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: LBJ: A Life (Hardcover)

This is an excellent biography. As an avid presidential history buff, I was fairly familiar with Lyndon Johnson's accomplishments as President. I was surprised to learn, however, Johnson's rise from freshman Congressman from rural Texas to Majority leader in an amazingly short amount of time. He was the towering figure in the Senate in the 1950's and accomlished much, even though the Democrats were in the minority during most of the Eisenhower years. LBJ was able to get votes where others couldn't by the sheer force of his personality. His ability to work with the members on the opposite side of the aisle should be emulated by most of today's politicians, who put partisan politics above what is best for the country.

Irwin and Debi Unger do an excellent job of trying to explain what drove LBJ. His rural background gave him an inferiority complex that caused him to work harder and longer than everyone else to get things done. It also made him feel that the public never fully appreciated his service to the country, especially after rising to the Presidency because of the assassination of JFK, a beloved figure.

If not for his ill-advised Vietnam polcies, however, I believe Johnson would have been re-elected in 1968 and would have been remembered as one of our great Presidents. Overall, an excellent read for both admirers and critics of LBJ.