Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency
“A readable, endlessly interesting look at the LBJ years.”—Kirkus“Updegrove’s valiant and interesting effort to reappraise the man and his presidency is both valuable and necessary.”—Booklist“ Lyndon Johnson was so big a figure that no one canvas can adequately capture him. Yet Mark K. Updegrove, the director of the Johnson Library and Museum, does remarkably well with one crisp phrase: ‘Flawed, yes, and not always good, but great.’ This is serious work, with a serious second look at . . . the flawed conventional wisdom about Johnson.” —Boston Globe"Indomitable Willis an instant classic...Mark Updegrove's scholarly mastery of oral histories, original source documents, and presidential writings, combined with a flair for exquisite story telling make for a fascinating, can't-put-down, lust-for-more read." —New York Journal of Books“This book throbs with voices from an era that proved to be a hinge of American history. Their recollections become a chorus of insight into Lyndon B. Johnson, the colossus of his time, whose personality, politics, and policies are getting a much deserved second look. No one should be more eager to hear these voices than Barack Obama, whose path to the White House was cleared by LBJ’s indomitable will.”—Bill Moyers “I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand Lyndon Johnson and his presi­dency. It is an entertaining as well as an enlightening book.”—President Jimmy Carter “Lyndon Johnson is the most underappreciated president of the twentieth century. The tragedy of Vietnam has long overshadowed his accomplishments in domestic affairs, especially on the subject of civil rights, where his positive influence was second only to Lincoln’s. Mark Upde­grove’s innovative examination of Johnson’s presidency marks an important step in setting the record straight.”—H.W. Brands, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and author ofTraitor to His ClassandThe First American “In history there’s no substitute for being there—unless it’s hearing the candid insights, rev­elations, and occasional belly laugh from those who were. Thanks to Mark Updegrove and his battery of historical eyewitnesses, presented here, as LBJ himself would attest, “with the bark off,” we don’t simply relive the past . . . we experience one of America’s most colorful, polarizing, galvanizing, and, yes, entertaining public lives from the inside out. Whatever you think of Lyn­don Johnson, you’ll never see him in quite the same light after plunging into this compulsively readable group portrait.”—Richard Norton Smith, George Mason University, and author ofPatriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation “Seeing is believing and Mark Updegrove’s book gives the reader an intimate and gripping view of Lyndon Johnson in the president’s own words and the words of those who saw this unbeliev­able American original, Machiavellian and magnificent, wrestling opponents in the Congress and the nation to the mat as he passed civil-rights, anti-poverty, consumer, health, education, environmental, arts, and humanities legislation that has changed our nation to this day.”—Joseph A. Califano Jr., Lyndon Johnson’s chief domestic policy aide and secretary of health, education, and welfare in the Carter administration “Mark Updegrove’sIndomitable Willsuperbly captures the always interesting Lyndon Johnson. Relying partly on Johnson’s voice, but mainly on the impressions and recollections of the many people who helped shape or observed his administration, the book re creates the great triumphs and frustrations of his presidency. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the sixties as a prelude to our times.”—Robert Dallek, author ofFlawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973andAn Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963