I admit, before reading this series of books, I had the general impression that Lyndon Johnson had been little more than a boring human mushroom that accidentally occupied the oval office between the gleaming Kennedy administration and the corrupt Nixon administration. What can I say? In school, my American History teachers typically discovered, after wrapping up the Civil War, that the school year was about to end, so they said "Reconstruction. WWI. WWII. Bye. Have a nice summer!" and we all fled the room. And why not? Everyone knows that the important parts of American History are the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and all the rest is just filler.

But to really understand America, you need to understand the connections. How did we get the America we live in now from the ideals we started with? To understand that, you need to understand modern American History, especially post-WWII history, because it's the most recent events that influence us most deeply.

And I have never seen any books that throw as much light on the important events of that era than Robert Caro's amazing series on the life of Lyndon Johnson. Not only was Johnson at the center of many of those events, but Caro has a real talent for context. Without ever losing sight of Johnson, he tells the backstories of the people and issues that Johnson runs up against. I would have said that few topics are duller than rural electrification, but Caro provides a description of rural life before electricity (based on first hand accounts collected by his wife from women who lived that life) that was so fascinating that I had to immediately stop and read it to my kids. And there are many similar wonderful digressions that are both extremely relevant to the Johnson story, and illuminating to anyone who wants to understand America. His description of the history and evolution of the US Senate is excellent.

And the character at the center of this story, Lyndon Baines Johnson, turns out to be an amazing piece of work. A man driven by unbridled ambition, sharp intelligence, and no morals whatsoever, who lies, cheats, charms and manipulates his way to power. He wins his elections by campaigning like his life and the lives of everyone he cares about depend on his winning, and when that doesn't get him there, he flat out buys the votes he needs in bulk. His only political ideology is whatever you want to hear, and he'll schmooze you if he can use you, and stomp on you otherwise.

This human engine of destruction seems to have been focused exclusively, since boyhood, on winning the presidency. But that's impossible. Southerners cannot be elected president because Northerners won't vote for them. How can a Southerner win the trust of Northerners? Only one way. By passing a significant Civil Rights Bill. For 100 years since the Civil War, Southern Democrats in the Senate have killed every Civil Rights Bill anyone put forth. Johnson, almost single-handedly, breaks that log jam, winning himself the credibility he needs to be a viable presidential candidate, and profoundly changing the face of America as an incidental side-effect. (Not only did that action open the door to blacks and to all the other civil rights movements that followed, it broke apart the old party system, as the former Southern Democrats abandoned the party that had betrayed them and joined the Republicans instead, redrawing the American political landscape.)

There is still at least one more book to come, and I imagine the focus of that will be on the Vietnam War. I anticipate it eagerly.