The most riveting political biography of our time Robert A. Caro’s life of Lyndon B. Johnson continues. Master of the Senate takes Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years from 1949 through 1960 in the United States Senate. Once the most august and revered body in politics by the time Johnson arrived the Senate had become a parody of itself and an obstacle that for decades had blocked desperately needed liberal legislation. Caro shows how Johnson’s brilliance charm and ruthlessness enabled him to become the youngest and most powerful Majority Leader in history and how he used his incomparable legislative genius--seducing both Northern liberals and Southern conservatives--to pass the first Civil Rights legislation since Reconstruction. Brilliantly weaving rich detail into a gripping narrative Caro gives us both a galvanizing portrait of Johnson himself and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings of legislative power.
