Master of the Senate

The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume III (Part 2 of a 3-Part Recording)

By: Robert A. Caro

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Master of the Senate, book three of the Years of Lyndon Johnson, carries Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his 12 years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. At the heart of the audiobook is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done.

It was during these years that all Johnson’s experience—from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine—came to fruition. Caro introduces the story with a dramatic account of the Senate itself: how Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun had made it the center of governmental energy, the forum in which the great issues of the country were thrashed out. And how, by the time Johnson arrived, it had dwindled into a body that merely responded to executive initiatives, all but impervious to the forces of change.

Caro anatomizes the genius for political strategy and tactics by which, in an institution that had made the seniority system all-powerful for a century and more, Johnson became majority leader after only a single term—the youngest and greatest Senate leader in our history; how he manipulated the Senate’s hallowed rules and customs and the weaknesses and strengths of his colleagues to change the unchangeable Senate from a loose confederation of sovereign senators to a whirring legislative machine under his own iron-fisted control.

Caro demonstrates how Johnson’s political genius enabled him to reconcile the unreconcilable: to retain the support of the Southerners who controlled the Senate while earning the trust—or at least the cooperation—of the liberals, led by Paul Douglas and Hubert Humphrey, without whom he could not achieve his goal of winning the presidency. He shows the dark side of Johnson’s ambition: how he proved his loyalty to the great oil barons who had financed his rise to power by ruthlessly destroying the career of the New Dealer who was in charge of regulating them, Federal Power Commission Chairman Leland Olds. And we watch him achieve the impossible: convincing Southerners that although he was firmly in their camp as the anointed successor to their leader, Richard Russell, it was essential that they allow him to make some progress toward civil rights. In a breathtaking tour de force, Caro details Johnson’s amazing triumph in maneuvering to passage the first civil rights legislation since 1875.

Master of the Senate, told with an abundance of rich detail that could only have come from Caro’s peerless research, is both a galvanizing portrait of the man himself and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings and personal and legislative power.

This is Volume 2. Have you listened to Master of the Senate, Volume 1 yet? And don't forget Volume 3.

©2002 Robert A. Caro, Inc. (P)2002 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

“A wonderful, a glorious tale.... It will be hard to equal this amazing book. It reads like a Trollope novel, but not even Trollope explored the ambitions and the gullibilities of men as deliciously as Robert Caro does. Even though I knew what the outcome of a particular episode would be, I followed Caro’s account of it with excitement. I went back over chapters to make sure I had not missed a word.... Caro’s description of how [Johnson passed the civil rights legislation] is masterly; I was there and followed the course of the legislation closely, but I did not know the half of it.” (Anthony Lewis, The New York Times Book Review)

“A masterpiece.... Robert Caro has written one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age.” (Daniel Finkelstein, The Times, London)

“Mesmerizing.... [It] brings LBJ blazing into the Senate.... A tale rife with drama and hypnotic in the telling. The historian’s equivalent of a Mahler symphony.” (Malcolm Jones, Newsweek)

great book shoddy product

why put these books in a three part series? why not make the spoken chapters line up with the audible files? why repeat the first two sentences of every chapter break?

2nd Vol of LBJ: MotS is as Brilliant as the others

There are 4 books (so far). MotS is the 3rd. This is the 2nd Vol of MotS.

It is a brilliant series providing tremendous grist for philosophical rumination upon history, political science, and human psychology.

Great book, great narration, shoddy editing

Putting aside the fact that it takes three credits to listen to this whole book (which is annoying, but sort of understandable given its length), the amount of repeated lines in this edit is pretty lazy.

Odd Repeated Sentances

Great book, but this volume had sentences that would repeat for no reason. I am also disappointed that audible split up this book into three pieces. This made them three of the shorter "books" I have purchased on Audible.

Superb reading

A must read. I cannot stop listing to all of Caro's books. Do your self a favor a buy all of the books.

Lots of production errors

The first two hours are a rereading of the last two hours of part one. Every so often a sentence is repeated verbatim twice in a row. Probably where the book on CD would end and begin. For a book I had to spend three credits on I found the production quality unacceptable. It is a good book though so there's nothing you can do about it until Audible combines all three parts into one book.

Love the book. The formatting was off however.

Excellent book. The chapter stops in the audio book are not accurate. You have to skip the first few hours of the book to get to where part 1 left off.

Riveting!

This is so well written and narrated I couldn't stop listening to it. Simply brilliant.

One of the best books ever written

This is one of those books that they have split in 2 so they can get twice the credits for it. Not a smart trend, not smart at all. If they keep this up Ill save the $460 a year I spend here and just get them from the frigin library.

Great part 2 of the recorded book

Only complaint is that the recoding needs editing. There are lots, i means lots of sentences that are repeated. This happens it seems about four times an hour. Otherwise it was great.