
Master of the Senate
The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume III (Part 1 of a 3-Part Recording)
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Narrated by:
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Grover Gardner
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By:
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Robert A. Caro
About this listen
Master of the Senate, Book Three of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, carries Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate.
A Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of the Last 30 Years
At the heart of the book 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—the titan of Capital Hill, volcanic, mesmerizing—and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings and personal and legislative power.
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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)
Complete audio book cheaper on Google play
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A must for the politics tragics!
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That’s a spicy meatball
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Very insightful
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Gripping! At times so affective
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I really enjoyed the minibiographies on Senators that were critical to Johnsons swift progress in the Senate.
I grew to dislike Johnson in the first book. At times in this one was so disgusted with his use of others I had to stop and find another topic of reading for a day or two. But like any car wreck or disaster, I had to return to see the rest...and already downloaded the next volume.
So Deep Into It..All of It.
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There is one thing that is very wrong with this book and it bothers me greatly. it's that your paying 3 credits in the end for 1 book. This dividing books into volumes is a sneaky and unfortunately encroaching method of drawing out more of your credits than you may be fully aware of. This book isn't THAT long to fairly divide it up into ``volumes`` nor are many of the other books this has been increasingly done to.
So lets call a spade a spade, Its a three credit book o.k.` I see Mcculloughs latest unabridged offerings are offered as 3 credit books with no shell game. those of us that spend freakishly long hours on this site have noticed this recent move to increase the credits for books in the above manners and more. email them and tell them this 3 credit crap is to much!! Thats at least $30 for 1 book! When it comes to that, its worth getting them from the library for free. I love this site, I have over 900 titles, The reason I keep spending all this money is because it has been good value. Theres no longer any point in continuing when so many of the titles double or triple in price.If their testing the waters to see what they can get away with,,the result will be the permanent loss of their most ardent subscribers.
DROP JAW AMAZING!!
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Quick note - my two star review for performance has nothing to do with Grover Gardner's read. He did a fantastic job. I'm just pissed at Audible or the producers for dividing this book into 3 sections. Instead of one book that is 54 hrs and 50 minutes long, they divided it into three books (thus three credits). They did this with Michael Burlingame's Lincoln too (but to be fair Burlingame's Lincoln = 109 hrs and 9 minutes). They didn't do it for any of Caro's other LBJ books. They didn't do it with Caro's The Power Broker (66 hrs and 11 mins). I get it that they need to pay for a huge book to get recorded and produced. So? Charge me 2 credits, but breaking it into 18 and 16 hours segments to extract 3 credits seems obnoxious. It isn't as bad as what they originally did with Burlingame's Lincoln. I think that book was originally broken down into 12 (TWELVE!!!) audiobooks with some being only 4 hrs and 34 minutes. That's my only beef really with this book. Brilliant. Well-read. One of the best biographies EVER written.
Junior Senator from Texas Learns the Ropes
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What did you love best about Master of the Senate?
Great book, so much information to gain.What was one of the most memorable moments of Master of the Senate?
The Leland Olds witch hunt is particularly memorably, though not for good reasons.What does Grover Gardner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Ability to consume the entire book in a timely manner.Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Leland Olds nomination fight, it turned my stomach something awful to hear how LBJ ruined a good man.Any additional comments?
I'm really disappointed this book was not only broken into three volumes on Audible (two understandable, but three defies logic given how first two volumes were presented as one single volume), but also that the chapters aren't lined up with the chapter breaks on the recording. This was highly disappointing given how well the first two books in this series were arranged and aligned by chapter.GREAT BOOK, BAD MANAGEMENT ON THIS BOOK
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If you could sum up Master of the Senate in three words, what would they be?
Fascinating, masterful, informativeWhat did you like best about this story?
Beautifully written, detailed painstaking research, enhanced my knowledge of US political system and role played by individuals. Deep insight into personalities, ambitions, motivations and human story behind major events.Which character – as performed by Grover Gardner – was your favorite?
N/AWas this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No.Remarkably well researched and written
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