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Robert Caro has a new book on President Lyndon Johnson coming out next month, "The Passage of Power",one of a string he is in still in the middle of, destined to be one of those multi-volume classics of history books. I jumped aboard the Caro train with his last offering, "Master of the Senate", and I understand the hype. I kick myself now for failing to check out the earlier volumes, but you know how one thing leads to another. I expect to catch this next offering, perhaps sometime over the summer.
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“It’s not a question of liking or disliking him. I’m trying to explain how political power worked in America in the second half of the 20th century, and here’s a guy who understood power and used it in a way that no one ever had. In the getting of that power he’s ruthless — ruthless to a degree that surprised even me, who thought he knew something about ruthlessness. But he also means it when he says that all his life he wanted to help poor people and people of color, and you see him using the ruthlessness, the savagery for wonderful ends. Does his character ever change? No. Are my feelings about Johnson mixed? They’ve always been mixed.”
-- Robert Caro
_ _ _
“It’s not a question of liking or disliking him. I’m trying to explain how political power worked in America in the second half of the 20th century, and here’s a guy who understood power and used it in a way that no one ever had. In the getting of that power he’s ruthless — ruthless to a degree that surprised even me, who thought he knew something about ruthlessness. But he also means it when he says that all his life he wanted to help poor people and people of color, and you see him using the ruthlessness, the savagery for wonderful ends. Does his character ever change? No. Are my feelings about Johnson mixed? They’ve always been mixed.”
-- Robert Caro
