This book, based on a series of talks given at the New York Library, biographers Robert Caro, David McCullough, Paul C. Nagel, Richard B. Sewall, Ronald Steel and Jean Strouse explain how and why they went about writing biographies in the way that they did.

Each biographer explains well how the life of the biographer becomes intertwined with that of the person they are researching. In each case, they stress that biography writing is both intense and time-consuming.

Lyndon B. Johnson biographer, Robert Caro, recommends Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe" for two reasons. One, to show that the job of the historian is to try to write at the same level as the greatest novelists. Second, that the duty of the historian is to go to the locales of the events that will be described, and not to leave, no matter how long it takes...until the writer has done his or her best to understand the locales and their cultures and their people.

In the end, it means that the biographer must not only understand the person, but also needs to intimately know the area where the person grew up and lived.

This book gives its readers new insights into the lives of some of this nation's most prominent figures, through the eyes of six well-known biographers. In "The Unexpected Harry Truman," David McCullough shows the life of Truman through new eyes. McCullough stresses that a biographer must genuinely care about his [or her] subject because you are living with that person every single day. The process is like that of choosing a spouse or roommate, therefore, the subjects that he chooses must have a degree of animal, human vitality. In Truman, he said, as with Theodore Roosevelt, he found no shortage of vitality.

McCullough created a detailed chronology, almost a diary of what Truman was doing from year to year, even day to day if the events were important enough. He also used primary sources, such as personal diaries, letters and documents from the time period. Truman poured himself out on paper and provided a large, wonderfully written base of writing for McCullough to sort through and "find" the man.

McCullough says that the magic of writing comes from not knowing where you are headed, what you are going to wind up feeling and what you are going to decide.

Richard Sewell's "In Search of Emily Dickinson," research process took twenty years and he says, "In the beginning I didn't go searching for her, she went searching for me." The process took him two sabbaticals, years of correspondence and meetings with Mabel Loomis Todd's daughter Millicent Todd Bingham to uncover the whole truth.

Paul Nagel's "The Adams Women," gives readers a sense of how important the women in the Adam's family were. Nagel said that contemplating the development of ideology is good training for a biographer. After all, he said, the intellectual historian takes an idea and brings it to life. For Nagel, working with ideas establishes a bridge into the mind and life of the people who had the ideas he studies.

Nagel said that he likes and admires women and this is why, after writing about the Adams' men, he wrote about the Adams' women. Nagel also said that he has learned and taught his students that our grasp of history must always remain incomplete.

Ronald Steel said, that the hardest job a biographer has is not to judge his or her subject, however, most fail to keep their judgements out of the biography.

In Jean Strouse's, "The Real Reasons," she explains that the modern biography examines how character affects and is affected by social circumstance. Biography also tells the reader a great deal about history and gives them a wonderful story.

In writing about Alice James, Strouse found that there was not an interesting plot line to her life other than that her brothers were writers Henry and William James.

Strouse, when asked by another writer about the descendents of the three James' children, she said that William's great-grandson in Massachusetts, tired of being asked whether he was related to Henry or William, moved to Colorado where he was asked whether he was related to Jesse or Frank. Strouse reported that he stayed in Colorado.

Strouse realized that in order to tell the story of the James' family, she was going to have to use her own voice to give life to the family, especially Alice. This is not recommended for all biographies, but in a case such as hers, it needs that biographer's voice to connect all the information for the reader.

In Robert Caro's, "Lyndon Johnson and the Roots of Power," he talked to the people who knew Johnson to get a sense of the former President from Texas and what made him worthy of a new biography. He wrote the biography to illuminate readers to the time period and what shaped the time, especially politically.

This book will help writers understand the steps he or she will need to take to write a biography. It shows the difficult research processes and makes the reader want to either write a biography about an interesting person or never want to write again. Either way, this book provides new insights that one may have never thought about before. I recommend this book to both beginning and seasoned writers

Until I read The Power Broker, I really had no idea who Robert Moses was. I knew very little about urban planning, New York City politics, or public works. Caro handles the subjects so thoroughly that the lack of familiarity mattered not at all. Moses was obviously a giant of a man. He accomplished great things and made colossal blunders; he was a man of great vision who was blind to the effects his policies had on the less fortunate. The contradictions are laid out in full detail in this monster of a book. It is hard to comprehend the work that Caro must have put into this book; it stands as the definitive biography of Moses and the textbook of urban policy in America.

This is quite simply the best book I have ever read. Moses is a towering subject, and Caro responds with a towering biography. The breadth of detail he brings to his subject is astonishing, while the narrative arc of Moses' rise and fall makes the book un-put-downable. Not a single word is wasted.

There is much to learn here: the political landscape of New York over a large part of the last century is brought vividly to life; the role of behind-the-scenes patronage in shaping, literally, the city we see today is illuminated in absorbing detail; the extent to which democracy fails, completely, to provide accountability should and does shock.

But beyond this, it is Moses himself who holds us in thrall. The confounding contradictions of the man---that he could achieve so much to such contemporary acclaim, yet do such profound damage to the city; that he could become, by dint of plain hard work, one of the most effective political agents the world has ever seen, yet wield this power to increasingly repellent ends---these are the questions on which Caro delicately balances his work. Balance he does, and it is a supreme achievement.

I will never again cross the Tri-Borough Bridge without looking down to see Moses' secret lair. One cannot read "The Power Broker" and look at New York in the same way ever again.

Perhaps the best way for me to recommend this book is to say that I had bought this 1100+-page book thinking that it would be my reading project for the next 6 months, and yet I finished it in about a month. The pages fly by due to how interesting Caro's subject is, Caro's obviously thorough research and his great writing style--the combination of a journalist's ability to make one see events and a suspense writer's flare for the dramatic. I was born and bred in Manhattan and Brooklyn, so it is possible that it's not be as easy a read for a non-native New Yorker, but I suspect that it would be.

The Power Broker is Robert Caro's opus about Robert Moses, New York City and its eastern suburbs on Long Island and, to a lesser degree, about New York State. To call it a biography would not fully capture it. One should pay attention to the second half subtitle explaining that the book is also about New York. Caro diverges from his subject to spend chapters or parts thereof on other important figures to New York and Robert Moses, such as former New York governor and presidential candidate Al Smith or to the workings of New York City and State's government before Moses came to power.

Caro gives the reader an amazing sense of what life was like in New York throughout the first two-thirds of the Twentieth Century and how Robert Moses changed and shaped the life of New Yorkers. You will picture great public works such as parks, bridges, beaches and highways spring into being, you will feel the pain of people kicked out of their homes to make way for these edifices. You will peek into legislatures and governor's mansions to see how they were delayed or speeded up, you will imagine the smoke-filled rooms of Tammany Hall where taxpayer money was passed between corrupt politicians with Robert Moses' help to make these works come to life. And, of course, most of all, you will picture Moses striving to make all this happen and grasping for power.

I wish that this review could be completely positive. I believe that Caro's writing style, research and his ability to translate the research into words deserves the 5 stars I gave this book, but I must say that I found some flaws in this book.

First, Caro paints Moses as a caricature. That is not to say that Caro paints Moses as all evil or all good. He explains several times that Moses did many great things for New York and many terrible things to it. He also says that it is impossible to know whether New York would be better or worse without Moses.

However, the picture of Moses Caro gives us is one-dimensional. He gives him three motivations for all his actions: a love to build, a love of power and an arrogant intelligence. With all due respect to Caro's thorough research, I can't believe that this is true. Moses, like all of us, must have been motivated by many different things. And yet, Caro hits us over the head with the same motivations over and over again in every chapter.

My second complaint is that, it seems to me that he ascribes much too much effect to Moses' causes. In one of Caro's greatest chapters, he describes Moses' tearing the heart out of East Tremont in the Bronx, NY to build the Cross-Bronx Expressway. He explains how Moses ruined the neighborhood without thought to its residents even though he could have built the highway in a much better location with almost no dislocation.

However, Caro goes too far and says that the neighborhood would have remained stable for the foreseeable future without Moses. Caro tries to explain why he believes that East Tremont would have survived. But his explanation is weak. It is probably impossible for him to explain how East Tremont, unlike its surrounding neighborhoods in the Bronx and unlike every other urban neighborhood of all ethnicities and all political stripes would not have succumbed to "white flight" as more Latinos and Blacks moved in. Caro could have said, as he did, that Moses destroyed a neighborhood and left people homeless without trying to argue, unsuccessfully, that the neighborhood would have been fine without Robert Moses.

Everything said though, this is a great book that will give you insight into a man, a city, public works and the actions of powerful people.

This huge first volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson tells the story of Johnson's life up to the time of his defeat in the Texas senatorial election of 1941.

I enjoyed the book very much, staying up late into the night to read more, yet having now finished it I thought that - somewhat perversely perhaps - the book's weaknesses as a biography were its strengths as a more general work of historical analysis.

Although the book is about Johnson, Caro doesn't restrain himself from letting his focus shift away from Johnson for long stretches: for example, the natural history and settlement of the Texas Hill Country are described in detail (fascinating to someone like me who knew next to nothing about these subjects); and the lives of other people who were important to Johnson are described in great detail (Sam Rayburn in particular).

I was happy to follow Caro down these roads, as he wrote so compellingly - for example, the descriptions of women's lives in the Hill Country should destroy a few rural myths. Other historians would have abbreviated or summarised such descriptions to the absolute minimum necessary to add to the reader's understanding of the context of the subject's life, whilst maintaining the overall focus on the subject himself. Indeed, at times, Caro loses sight of Johnson completely, and the book becomes more of a general history.

I felt that Caro made up his mind that Johnson was an utterly unscrupulous and amoral politician, totally devoted to the acquisition of power. The picture he paints of Johnson and of American democracy is unflattering - elections and politicians are there to be bought - money is everything. We're in a precursor stage to the "military-industrial complex". Even where Johnson did good, Caro's praise is brief (for example in his determination to force through the rural electrification program). I thought that there needed to be a better balance - surely there were issues other than money and gerrymandering that decided elections in the US? Or am I being naive?

Also, if Johnson the man was such a hated person, why did he evoke such loyalty? It seems too dismissive to explain this by stating that other people were furthering their own self-interest through Johnson.

I feel somewhat churlish at criticising a book I enjoyed so much, but I will read the next volume!

I think that I read this book right after I took a "history through biography" class in college. I remember the professor gave us a list of questions that we should keep in mind while reading every biography. The most important ones were regarding how the time and place of a person's upbringing affected their lives. Well, Robert Caro nails just about any questions anybody could have about the influences of past family and regional history on Lyndon Johnson. He explains the unique influence of the Texas Hill country on the people who live there, and the family history of Johnson's mother and father. If you ever want to examine the incredible drive and ambition required to rise out of humble beginnings to become the most powerful man in America, this book is highly recommended. Can't wait until the next volume is published!

Forget about what your opinion of LBJ is. You still need to read this book. I don't care if you like him, hate him, care nothing for him, or whatever. The way Caro writes a biography is almost breathtaking. Ever wonder what a summer day deep in the Texas Hill country is like? You'll find out in here, and rest assured, it won't put you to sleep.

This book is a great introducation to 20th Century Texas politics. The first few chapters hardly mention LBJ as Caro goes back to LBJ's father and discusses his life. For those of you that have read this book and the 1987 sequel, Means of Ascent, you may be wondering why the third volume covering the 1960s hasn't been written. I have it on good authority that the entire LBJ clan -- family, friends, and close advisors -- have made it clear to Caro that he is unwelcome around them. Hatchet job, or sour grapes because of the truth? Well, read the book and find out. But my guess is that Caro's terrific sources have simply dried up, and he isn't going to put his name on something where the quality is less than this book. Unfortunately for him, that might be near impossible.

One more thing to the quality of this book: there are about a dozen other LBJ books out there ranging from good to just plain bad. Every one of them without exception use this book as a source.

UPDATE: I am extremely happy to be wrong with my guess about Caro's sources drying up. I am looking forward to reading Master of the Senate.

I have to disagree with the universal 5 stars this book gets from other reviewers here.

First, readers not familiar with Caro should know that he uses LBJ as a springboard to do a larger social history. In the first book, this included fascinating insights into what daily life was like in rural Texas and rural America in the early part of the 20th Century.

One weakness of this 2nd volume is that, despite an early go at Johnson's WWII service & early time in Washington, Caro largely narrows this focus down to Texas itself, a particular election, LBJ's opponent in that election, and finally even to one flunkie in the Texas political machine. This somewhat derails both the social history aspect and the LBJ-biographical aspect.

(Readers who don't want to have some of the story given away shouldn't read the rest of this review.)

Caro tips his hand with this book. In the first volume, Caro says Johnson stole all his early elections, even little ones. Caro tells the tale so well in that book that the whole story becomes rather shocking, even in today's politically cynical age. Here, Caro says Johnson stole his big Senate election. It's becoming quickly apparent that Caro is prepared to tell us that Johnson stole literally every single election he ever ran in during his entire life. I think only the biggest Johnson-loathers around would buy this premise on its face.

Still, this a fantastically-written narrative, and I eagerly await the 3rd volume. But, in the end, let's hope that Caro's whole story doesn't simply boil down to the thesis that "LBJ is not only as bad as you've ever heard...he's WORSE." Given how much of his life Caro has devoted to this work, and how much time and money we readers have devoted to it as well, it would be a shame if Caro's sweeping narrative proves to ultimately be that narrow.

Means of Ascent gets rapped at times for being too negative or too narrow in focus. Caro states, "Those threads (elements of LBJ's character and actions), bright and dark, run side by side through most of Lyndon Johnson's life . . . As the story unfolds in succeeding volumes, the threads will, again, run side by side . . . The two threads do NOT (my emphasis) run side by side in this volume. The bright one is missing. For this volume is about a seven-year period in the life of Lyndon Johnson in which his headlong race for power was halted."

It's not Caro's fault that that happens to be the reality of this period in LBJ's life. To "make" the book more balanced would be intellectually dishonest. Let's read the subsequent volumes before passing judgment on the balance of the subject matter in this one.

Note: Since this was written, the third volume (Master of the Senate) has been published. Having read this latest volume, I remain convinced that the work in total should be treated like a jigsaw puzzle: each piece takes on an interesting, unique form with splashes of bright and dark colors, but you have to put them all together to see the entire picture. And the picture is more than just Lyndon Johnson the man - it is a picture of political power in the U.S., embodied in the life and "Years of Lyndon Johnson". What makes Caro's work in "Means of Ascent" so remarkable (along with the other volumes) is not just the recounting of events, but the documented mechanics of the acquisition and execution of power in all its ugly and awesome dimensions. The story of Ballot Box 13 in this volume is a fascinating example. And for the true Caro fan, you simultaneously marvel at the story within the story: the detective-like research work that uncovers the truth, culminating in Johnson's own gloating of the event after he became President.

...and this is a big "but." Caro verges on the hatchet job in volume two. He is a brilliant writer and his research methods are precise and methodical. But his take on LBJ here is overly negative, he always sees the worst case scenario and it winds up being hard to swallow, even if you detest Lyndon Johnson. He damns Johnson for stealing elections, when anyone else worth their salt in Texas in the 30's and 40's did the same thing. John Connelly ultimately refused further interviews with Caro because he felt this book was too brutally negative and I concur. So why the five stars?

Because Caro is such an outstanding writer, he turns history into literature. His way with words is leagues ahead of other historical biographers, he writes with the flair of a novelist but he backs up his words with years of dilligent research. What other biographer pulls up stakes and lives for *five years* in the Texas hill country in order to better understand his subject? This first volume stands at the pinnacle of the biographical art, the second volume is slightly less convincing and a great deal more negative.

Many have criticized Caro (Lady Bird and Connelly most vociferously) for being overly critical of Johnson. I share this concern and feel he sometimes bends over backwards to "stick it to" Johnson. Caro has said repeatedly that he will deal with LBJ's Presidency with a more charitible outlook and this is to be hoped.

I am an unabashed fan of Lyndon Johnson and this will stand as the definitive biography of him for many years. Though it's caustic and critical, it's so beautifully written you can read it again and again. A masterpiece of biography and I can't wait for the third volume. Hopefully, that will be more forgiving of LBJ.

This is a phenomenal book. For 900 of its 1000+ pages, I was absolutely riveted, unable to think of anything else until I finished. The strongest and most indelible impression left by the book is of the utter corruption of the US Senate, an institution steeped in reactionary politics and thoroughly soiled by "campaign contributions," otherwise known as bribes from big business. To read in such detail of Senators' horse-trading their votes, abandoning all principle for personal gain within the Senate playground, is truly chilling. Caro's portrait of the Senate is devastating, and no one who holds our government in high esteem can leave this book unshaken. The book is flawed, however. While generally a huge fan of Caro's style, sometimes he gets the better of himself, writing run on sentences (one ran 8 lines and included over 15 commas) and repeating his own analysis.

In fact, this last criticism points to a large weakness in the book's closing chapters: Caro seems determined to make the passage of the "Civil Rights" bill of '57 the climax of the book and to give Johnson credit for it, yet he lacks the evidence to do so. He spends page after page assuring the reader how impossible any compromise was on this bill while offering little detail as to what Johnson was doing between January and July of '57. In fact, several critical decisions were not made or even very much influenced by Johnson. While Johnson pulled off sevearl stunning maneuvers, they came after months of prevarication and they all severed to destroy the bill's spirit. The bill itself was no great shakes, as Caro briefly admits, and was so gutted by the time it was passed that all but the most deluded of liberals recognized that it was almost worse than passing noting. Johnson may have "redeemed" himself in '64 and '65, but the '57 bill was a shameful, useless piece of legislation.

However, the book is thrilling and horrifying and a terrific read. There are many gorgeous set pieces, including the history of the Senate, the barbaric crucifixion of Leland Olds, the mini-bio of Russell, and the account of the '56 Democratic Convention. An interesting sub-theme running through the book is the corruption of Hubert Humphrey, a Senator with so much promise who quickly emasculated himself and his beliefs in order to gain political advantage as Johnson's toady. That sad, sad tale will hopefully be told in someone else's book.

Finally, to the criticism that this book does not delve deeply enough in Johnson the man or his psyche, well, that's fine by me. I came to this book hoping to learn about LBJ (I haven't read the first two in the series) and the Senate. I got absolutely more than I could handle. As I see it, the book's subtitle, "The Years of Lyndon Johnson," rebuffs any criticism that it focusses to much on events outside of LBJ. As it is, this book provides us with a terrifying close-up view of Senate power through its use and, more often, abuse, by Johnson.

I unhesitatingly recommend this book to anyone interested in American government, politics, or the Civil Rights movement. The book is seriously flawed, however. In 1050 pages the reader gets a wonderful history of the U.S. Senate, an insightful and exciting examination of the art of legislative leadership, and a poignant portrait of racism in America a mere fifty years ago, plus a fascinating mini-biography of Richard Russell. The book purports to cover LBJ as a Senator, but, despite its great length, the book virtually ignores the last 3 years of his 12-year Senate tenure -- incredible in a book of this length and detail (and in view of the length and detail in the previous books in this series, particularly the second book). We are given almost 100, frequently boring, pages on the Leland Olds confirmation, but almost nothing on LBJ's role in killing further civil rights legislation in 1958-60, and the effect of this on his presidential aspirations. This despite the overarching event of the book: LBJ's shepherding to passage the Civil Rights Act of 1957, a critical step on his rise to national prominence. It appears that Mr. Caro ran out of steam with the tale of the 1957 Act. With better editing, the book could (and should) have been much shorter, leaving ample space for the author to examine with equal care the vitally important years of LBJ's run-up to the 1960 presidential campaign. Nevertheless, this serious flaw left me merely disappointed; I enjoyed the book immensely.

I have read all of Caro's books and eagerly looked forward to this one. However, I found it something of a let-down after the first two LBJ books. True, it's a masterly analysis of the legislative process, but that's precisely why I felt disappointed. The earlier LBJ volumes focused on Johnson's personal development and his campaigns. Caro was able to integrate into that material very evocative descriptions of the milieu in which Johnson matured. I find Texas in the 30s vastly more picturesque than Washington in the 50s. Caro does depart from the Washington scene to describe the civil rights struggle, but he doesn't bring any new vision to it, nothing we would miss by reading only Taylor Branch's work, for example. In fact, the most riveting section of this book is the portrait of Richard Russell, a mini-biography in itself. As for Caro's treatment of Johnson in this volume, I found unconvincing his attempt to credit Johnson with idealism as well as political calculation in passing a civil rights bill. One can't deny that this book is another Caro masterpiece, but it will appeal mostly to Congressional aficionados. I expect the next volume, dealing with the 1960 presidential campaign, will be more interesting, and I lament the long wait for it I expect we'll have to endure.

This is a POWERFUL book. A good, quick read from some of our premier modern-day American historians. This collection of essays gives us an inside look at most of the presidencies of the second half of the 20th century. A must read for any history buff.

• Edmund Morris - Last fall, Morris published the controversial biography Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. His book The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt earned him a Pulitzer Prize.

• Ben Bradlee - Author of That Special Grace, a tribute to John F. Kennedy, Bradlee is a vice president at the Washington Post. He previously was the executive editor at the Post who oversaw reporting of the Watergate scandal.

• David Maraniss - A reporter at the Washington Post since 1977, Maraniss earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his coverage of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. He subsequently wrote the Clinton biography, First in his Class. His latest book is When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi.

The "Power and the Presidency" series was created on behalf of the Montgomery Endowment by alumnus Robert A. Wilson of Dallas, a communications consultant who put together a similar series, "Character Above All" (dealing with the impact of character on presidential leadership) in 1994 at the University of Texas at Austin.

These well written essays provide vivid glimpses of varying Presidential personalities, with thoughtful discussion of individual strengths and weaknesses. To me, especially in an election year where character is a major issue, it was an enthralling read, with highlights of qualities such as "Reagan's voice, which was a large part of Reagan's power..." or the speaking style of TR, with plosive P sounds, which "would pop with Gatling-gun force. The effect of his oratory was to bury every word in the psyche of his listeners." or the political genius exhibited by FDR who talked "at a level at which very few people could follow him and understand what he was really saying" that FDR also recognized in a young congressmen, LBJ, as "he saw Johnson understood _everything_ he was talking about." I enjoyed reading these examples of behavior and the illuminating contrasts such as: "It is hard to imagine two more different men than Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy..." or "despite the major differences in their temperaments--indeed, I would argue, because of these differences--Eleanor and Franklin forged their historic partnership..." I would recommend to readers the book "Presidential Temperament" by Choiniere and Keirsey, another well researched volume which gives an explanation of "how each President's temperament inevitably expressed itself in his behavior, both in office and in his personal life."