MEANS OF ASCENT (LBJ #2)(ISBN=9780679733713)pdf/txt下载_在线阅读全文

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The second installment in a projected four-volume biography of LBJ that opened with The Path to Power, Means of Ascent shines a harsh light on the early political years of one of America's most paradoxical presidents. The man who would later ram civil rights legislation through a reluctant Congress, and then be brought down by Vietnam, came out of a political swamp--Caro gives a graphic picture of the Texas democratic political machine at its most corrupt. The climax of the book is LBJ's election to the Senate in 1948, an election he won by 87 dubious votes out of almost a million. That vote arguably changed history. This book won the 1990 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

内容简介

The most important, acclaimed, and galvanizing political biography of our era--which began with The Path to Power--continues in this national bestseller. In Means of Ascent Lyndon Johnson's almost mythic personality is seen at its most nakedly ambitious. The culminating drama--the explosive heart of the book--is Caro's illumination of one of the great political mysteries of the century, the "87 votes that changed history."

作者简介

For his biographies of Robert Moses and LyndonJohnson, Robert A. Caro has twice won the Pulitzer Prize forBiography, twice won the National Book Critics Circle Award forBest Nonfiction Book of the Year, and has also won virtually everyother major literary honor, including the National Book Award, theGold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts andLetters, and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society ofAmerican Historians to the book that best "exemplifies the union ofthe historian and the artist."

For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon
Johnson, Robert A. Caro has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for
Biography, twice won the National Book Critics Circle Award for
Best Nonfiction Book of the Year, and has also won virtually every
other major literary honor, including the National Book Award, the
Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of
American Historians to the book that best "exemplifies the union of
the historian and the artist." 
 
   To create his first book, The Power Broker:
Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Caro spent seven years
tracing and talking with hundreds of men and women who worked with,
for, or against Robert Moses, including a score of his top
aides.  He examined mountains of files never open to the
public.  Everywhere acclaimed as a modern classic, The
Power Broker was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the
hundred greatest non-fiction books of the twentieth century. It is,
according to David Halberstam, "Surely the greatest book ever
written about a city." And The New York times Book
Review said: "In the future, the scholar who writes the
history of American cities in the twentieth century will doubtless
begin with this extraordinary effort." 
 
   To research The Years of Lyndon Johnson,
Caro and his wife, Ina, moved from his native New York City to the
Texas Hill Country and then to Washington, D.C., to live in the
locales in which Johnson grew up and in which he built, while he
was still young, his first political machine.  He has spent
years examining documents at the Johnson Library in Austin and
interviewing men and women connected with Johnson's life,
many of whom had never before been interviewed. The first volume of
The Years of Lyndon Johnson, The Path to Power, was cited by
The Washington Post as "proof that we live in a great age of
biography... [a book] of radiant excellence... Caro's evocation of
the Texas Hill Country, his elaboration of Johnson's unsleeping
ambition, his understanding of how politics actually work, are—let
 it be said flat out—at the summit of American historical
writing." Professor Henry F. Graff of Columbia University called
the second volume, Means of Ascent, "brilliant.  No
review does justice to the drama of the story Caro is telling,
which is nothing less than how present-day politics was
born."  And the London Times hailed volume three,
Masters of the Senate, as "a masterpiece... Robert Caro has
written on of the truly great political biographies of the modern
age." 
  
  "Caro has a unique place among American political
biographers," according to The Boston Globe.  "He has
become, in many ways, the standard by which his fellows are
measured."  And Nicholas von Hoffman wrote: "Caro has changed
the art of political biography." 
 
   Caro graduated from Princeton University and
later became a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.  He lives
in New York City with his wife, Ina, an historian and writer.

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媒体评论

Thrilling. Caro burns into the reader's imagination the story ofthe [1948 Senate] election. Never has it been told so dramatically,with breathtaking detail piled on incredible development . . .InThe Path to Power, Volume I of his monumental biography,Robert A. Caro ignited a blowtorch whose bright flame illuminatedJohnson's early career. In Means of Ascent he intensifiesthe flame to a brilliant blue point. --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt,New York Times

"Brilliant. No brief review does justice to the drama of the storyCaro is telling, which is nothing less than how present-daypolitics was born." --Henry F. Graff, Professor of History,Columbia University

"Riveting . . . Explosive . . . Readers are in for a white-knuckle,hair-raising tale that could have ended in any of a dozen ways,with L.B.J. in the White House the longest shot of all. This isgood history. Caro's treatment achieves poetic intensity." --PaulGray, Time

Thrilling. Caro burns into the reader's imagination the story of
the [1948 Senate] election. Never has it been told so dramatically,
with breathtaking detail piled on incredible development . . .In
The Path to Power, Volume I of his monumental biography,
Robert A. Caro ignited a blowtorch whose bright flame illuminated
Johnson's early career. In Means of Ascent he intensifies
the flame to a brilliant blue point. --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt,
New York Times 
 
"Brilliant. No brief review does justice to the drama of the story
Caro is telling, which is nothing less than how present-day
politics was born." --Henry F. Graff, Professor of History,
Columbia University 
 
"Riveting . . . Explosive . . . Readers are in for a white-knuckle,
hair-raising tale that could have ended in any of a dozen ways,
with L.B.J. in the White House the longest shot of all. This is
good history. Caro's treatment achieves poetic intensity." --Paul
Gray, Time 
 
"Caro has a unique place among American political biographers. He
has become, in many ways, the standard by which his fellows are
measured. Caro's diligence [and] ambition are phenomenal . . . A
remarkable story . . . Epic." --Mark Feeney, Boston Sunday
Globe 
 
"Immensely engaging . . . Caro is an indefatigable investigative
reporter and a skillful historian who can make the most abstract
material come vibrantly to life. [He has a] marvelous ability to
tell a story . . . His analysis of how power is used---to build
highways and dams, to win elections, to get rich---is masterly."
--Ronald Steel, New York Times Book Review 
 
"Caro has changed the art of political biography." --Nicholas von
Hoffman 
 
"A spellbinding, hypnotic journey into the political life and times
of Lyndon Johnson. Riveting drama." --Jim Finley, Los Angeles
Times 
 "The most compelling study of American political power
and corruption since Robert Penn Warren's All the King's
Men.... It is nothing less than a political epic, the
definitive account of a watershed election, rich with all of the
intrigue and drama that have become the stuff of legend. [It has]
the suspense of a political thriller." --Steve Neal, Fort Worth
Star Telegram 
 "His research is dazzlingly exhaustive, his gripping
story is enhanced by excellent writing, and his findings [seem]
largely irrefutable. No one has done a better job of researching
[the 1948 race] than Mr. Caro. He has produced a portrait not only
of Lyndon Johnson, but also of the politics and values of
mid-century America." --Philip Seib, Dallas Morning News 
 "A great book, and I believe the completed biography will
be the great book about American politics in the twentieth
century. The story of the '48 election is remarkable, unique. If it
weren't a cliche, I'd say it has Tolstoyan epic grandeur." --Robert
K. Massie 
 
"A spellbinding political thriller...riveting." --Arthur Salm,
San Diego Tribune 
 "No one understands Lyndon Baines Johnson without reading
Robert A. Caro." --James F. Vesely, Sacramento Union 
 "We who are alive today are privileged to be present at
the creation of what, when it is completed, may rank as the most
riveting and disturbing American political biography of this
century . . . Magnificently written." --Theodore M. O'Leary,
Kansas City Star 
 -- Review 
 
an immensely engrossing and deeply disturbing tale . . . Mr. Caro
is an indefatigable investigative reporter and a skillful historian
who can make the most abstract material . . . come vibrantly to
life. -- New York Times Book Review, Ronald Steel

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