LBJ's America

LBJ’S AMERICA edited by Mark Atwood Lawrence (Director of the Johnson Presidential Library) and Mark K. Updegrove is a collection of essays about “The Life and Legacies of Lyndon Baines Johnson” from Cambridge University Press. The text is divided into four broad sections: background on LBJ and his times, his domestic policies, foreign affairs, and reflections on his impact. That last section is written by Melody C. Barnes, Obama’s director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. This text is filled with facts and details; approximately twenty percent is devoted to notes, extensive bibliographic citations, and a helpful index. And the essays provide valuable insights on a man who is remembered for dramatic advances in civil rights and immigration law as well as the quagmire, societal divisions, and deaths due to the escalation of the Vietnam War. UT Austin published an interview with Lawrence which explores some of these contrasts. It is worth noting that historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin have praised this new text which will likely have greatest appeal for scholars and academicians due to its language, tone, and high quality of selections (e.g., Joshua Zeitz provides an essay on the War on Poverty). Austin’s Book People is promoting LBJ’S AMERICA along with the upcoming Texas Book Festival on Nov. 11 and 12. I also think it would be very interesting to watch Turn Every Page, the new documentary about the collaboration between Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb as they spent roughly fifty years documenting the LBJ story.