LBJ: A Life

by Irwin Unger and Debi Unger

"A careful, comprehensive portrait of a complex figure, a man both eminently practical and deeply principled, who looms large over the middle of our century." Kirkus Reviews In LBJ: A Life, Pulitzer prize-winning authors Irwin Unger and Debi Unger provide a vivid portrait of the life of Lyndon B. Johnson, from his humble origins to his rise to America's highest office. The book explores the political and personal influences that made Johnson such an unpredictable, charismatic, and difficult person, depicting his life as a constant tension between political expediency and a deeply felt moral obligation to build the American "Great Society." From the hard scrabble life of the Texas hill country to the colorful Lone Star elections that provided an entree into national politics, to power politics in Washington, this highly readable biography traces the life, influences, and motivations of the man who occupied the Oval Office during one of the nation's most tumultuous periods.

• ISBN10: 0471395226
• ISBN13: 9780471395225
• Publish Date: 21 December 2000 (first published 17 September 1999)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 8 October 2008
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: John Wiley & Sons Inc
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 592
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

Not reviewing this book as such, more writing a note for my own record.

I am not rating this book as my reason for abandoning it is not the quality of the book but rather that I have lost interest in the subject.

The book is well written as far as I can tell. No idea where the authors are going with this, but the start of the book focuses on the hardships of LBJ's early life that influenced some of his political motivations.

However, there is, even within the first 50 pages, much honing in on Johnson's passion for social justice, which is an assertion, or rather an assumption on Johnson's character, that will, no doubt, create cause for contention later on in his biography.