Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream

Doris Kearns Goodwin's classic life of Lyndon Johnson, who presided over the Great Society, the Vietnam War, and the tumultuous 1960s, is a monument in political biography. From the moment the author, then a young woman from Harvard, first encountered President Johnson at a White House dance in the spring of 1967, she became fascinated by the man - his character, his enormous energy and drive, and how he wielded them into his endless pursuit of power. As a member of his White House staff, she soon became his personal confidante, and in the years before his death he revealed himself to her as he did to no other. "Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream" takes us through the vast landscape of Johnson's political and personal life: from his childhood, dominated by an indulgent mother and a hell-raising politico father, through his early political victories and the ideals that inspired them; from the Washington system that trained him, through his election as Vice President and the transitional year, 1964, when JFK's assassination brought him to the highest office in the land; from remarkable talents that brought him triumph, to the inner demons that tormented him and the flaws that engendered his ultimate tragedy. This is a work of biography like few others: With uncanny insight and a richly engrossing style, the author has rendered LBJ in all his vibrant, conflicted humanity.