Customer Reviews

Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President

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Robert Dallek has abriged his two volume set (nearly 1,500 pages) down to 400+ pages. Mr. Dallek is a solid writer and researcher. His biography will give you a sense of LBJ as a person and a politican, his accomplishments and his life & times. This will remain as the best single-volume biography available to the reader. So if reading just one book on LBJ is your goal, then this is your book.

Having said that, I wish to encourage the reader to explore either Mr. Dallek's original set or the never-ending magnum opus of Robert Caro (three volunes and over 2,700 pages so far). For better or for worse, LBJ was second only to FDR for his domination and impact upon the American political scene in a 40 year career that stretched from the 1930's to the 1960's. LBJ had an outsized personality and ambitions that was his strength and, ultimately, his weakness. Although Mr. Dallek does a excellent job in condensing his prior work, no single volume can ever do justice to the life of LBJ.

Personally, I prefer Robert Caro's massive, and sometimes, exhaustive work (his current three books only cover LBJ up to 1960, the same time period for Mr. Dallek's original first volume). Mr. Caro is a wonderful storyteller (somewhat akin to William Manchester) and you are swept away in his epic tale of LBJ. In deciding what to read, it really comes down to how much time and how much interest the reader has in the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Professor Robert Dallek provides an incredible biography of one of the most complex presidents of the twentieth century, LBJ. Readers obtain insight into a compassionate yet deceitful individual who believed in his populist social reforms; Professor Dallek believes LBJ was motivated by an impoverish childhood. Of most interest is how LBJ anguished over the Nam War that just seemed to get worse everyday and he finding no way out of the quicksand. Also interesting is the self comparison to JFK and RFK.

Well written and easy to read, LYNDON B. JOHNSON: PORTRAIT OF A PRESIDENT is a fantastic bio of an individual who wielded power like an emperor yet had a fragile ego. His legacy includes Medicare, environmental protection, and noteworthy improvements in civil rights but is often overshadowed by Viet Nam. Many of LBJ's accomplishments still impact Americans today thirty-five years after he left office. Professor Dallek provides the complete picture of the man in a fascinating biography that paints an interesting picture (pros and cons), not the anecdotal generalizing spin that is seen too often today. This is a great bio worth reading by everyone especially historical and political science fans.

Harriet Klausner

Given the complexity of both the man and the times he lived in I would have thought that a one volume biography of Lyndon Johnson was impossible. While certain sacrifices are made, for example the LBJ's relationships with his contemporaries are often glossed over, the book does its job and portrays the basics of who LBJ was. Dallek also does a good job at describing the master politician that LBJ was and how that helped him craft one of the most assertive and successful legislative agenda's in American history. Lastly, he explains how LBJ's obession with Vietnam ultimately lead to his downfall. A very interesting book and a strong must read for people interested in 20th century history.

During the 1960s, I was one of those who Johnson saw as aiding and abetting the enemy. I was strongly opposed to the Vietnam War and participated in demonstrations to try to bring an end to the war. I saw Johnson as a very one-issue president who was more concerned with ego and grandeur than peace and justice. Mr. Dallek's biography has helped me to flush out the man and his accomplishments. He truly brought civil rights to the political forefront and created programs that helped bring African American's out of abject poverty. He tried to bring New Deal sensibilities into the 1960s. Mr. Dallek's portrait is of a man of great ego who believed strongly in his causes. This resulted in both great accomplishments and failures. This biography helps flesh out a man who is only now, forty years later, being seen from for the complex individual that he is. This is a great and enlightening read.

The Kindle edition has a lot of typos, primarily extra spaces between words, missing spaces between words, or misplaced hyphenation. I expect an electronic copy was imported and not proofed at all. This is dissapointing as Kindle editions are not particularly cheap.

This abridged work seems too simplified and rushed, you can tell it was cut down from a longer work. If you are not familiar with LBJ and this history of the time, it would be more informative and enjoyable, but if you are reasonably familiar with the history you would be better advised to read the longer originals or Caro's books (or both).

Interesting portrait, but clearly abridged. The book felt very rushed towards the end as if Dallek was rushing against a page count. I wish I would have read the two volume set.

Lyndon B. Johnson will be remembered as President for his passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also for his unwillingness to become the first president to lose a war. A career in politics will invariably lead one to people you dislike and Lyndon had his share of those, notably Bobby Kennedy. Johnson was a very down to earth individual, some would say crude, in his manner of speech to others, but he was a tireless worker in the area of Civil Rights in which he was successful, and in regard to the Vietnam war which wore him down to the extent that he chose not to run for a second term in 1968. His reason for not more actively bombing North Vietnam and escalating the war in that regard was his fear of China and Russia entering the conflict. It so happened that it was he who was president when the war reached the stalemate stage, but chances are anyone else would have adopted the same policy as he did. However, his stubborness in not having his presidency tarnished with a defeat in the war ultimately wore him down with him leaving office with an escalated war beyond his control. Our history is littered with presidents whose names are barely remembered, but Lyndon Baines Johnson will always be remembered, mostly for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which brought the southern states in line with the rest of the nation regarding an integrated society and for a fruitless war fought over an erroneous domino theory in which one successive country after another will fall to communism if one of them does. The book is nearly 400 pages long, but it is a read well worth your time.

This is the best book out there on LBJ. Dallek covers his entire life from start to finish. Lyndon Johnson was a towering and caring man. This book really tells his story.