Frank Stein's Reviews > Master of the Senate

Yes, this, the third volume in the Johnson biography, is also one of the best books ever written, like the other ones. And yes, I can't wait until the next volume comes out.

Caro is such a great writer because he is so honestly interested in the minutiae of process, and he treats all his great works as procedural thrillers. He doesn't just want to know that Johnson was able to win a vote in the Senate, he wants to know exactly how he did it, what horse-trades he had to make, what motions he would use to speed up or slow down the vote, how he would organize the investigative committees to proselytize for his cause. Caro discovers how Johnson hired his staff from executive departments, how he acquired extra office space, how he was able to threaten or cajole other members into supporting him. And all this doesn't come across as irrelevant detail because Caro is able to show how important it all is, not just for Johnson but for the country, and to simultaneously show the kind of intelligence and drive it took to pull it all off.

Surprisingly, with a book of this heft, it is not exactly comprehensive. Out of the ten years covering four or five are treated in no more than a few pages. It is really a series of case studies that focus on particular aspects of the Senate in the 1950s: the subcommittee investigative hearings on Korean war preparedness, the vote on the confirmation of Federal Power Commissioner Leland Olds, and the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Each of these dramatizes a different part of the Senate's operation, and makes the reader understand exactly what the Senate does and how it does it like no other book can.

I have to say that Caro could be a little repetitive when emphasizing a dramatic point (yes, by the third volume I know Johnson was very ambitious), but its worth it.