It was Lyndon Johnson, Caro writes, that “led into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life.” And it was Lyndon Johnson who became, in Caro’s words, “the lawmaker for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed … the bearer of at least a measure of social justice to those whom social justice had so long been denied, the restorer of at least a measure of dignity to those who so desperately needed to be given some dignity, the redeemer of the promise made to them by America.” Caro, a philosophical liberal, admires Johnson’s legislative achievements, especially in the area of Civil Rights and voting rights. In the first four volumes, Caro has relentlessly explored what he calls the two dominant “threads” of Johnson’s life: political achievement and an unbounded hunger for power. When The Years of Lyndon Johnson is completed, Caro’s achievement will rank as one of the greatest American political biographies and perhaps the greatest study of the use and abuse of political power by an American politician.

The fifth volume is projected to focus on Johnson’s Great Society legislation and his expansion of U.S. That was followed in 1990 by Means of Ascent, in 2002 by Master of the Senate, and in 2012 by The Passage of Power. Caro’s first volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, entitled The Path to Power, was published thirty years ago in 1982.

Caro turned 86, and he continues to work on the fifth and final volume of his magisterial biography of Lyndon Johnson.

Lyndon johnson the path to power