LBJ: Architect of American Ambition. By Randall B. Woods. (New York: Free Press, 2006. xii, 1007 pp. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-684-83458-0.)

Abstract

In lbj: Architect of American Ambition, Randall B. Woods has written a massive, meaty, masterful biography of the thirty-sixth president. Over the last two decades, Lyndon B. Johnson has attracted more scholarly attention than a flock of Texas white-winged doves in hunting season. And rightly so, for there is no understanding the second half of the twentieth century without understanding Johnson. Understanding him is not easy, but after ten years of prodigious research and writing, Woods is equal to the task. As a native-born Texan, he also brings a special understanding of the place where the Old South meets the New West, the place where lbj absorbed his values and manner. Complex and conflicted, lbj reflected the contradictions of America. Indeed, as Woods notes, Johnson—the ultimate Texan—ultimately comprised the paradoxes of ambitious America: selfless and selfish, common and exceptional, generous and petty, confident and insecure, utopian and pragmatic, “a fanatical gradualist” fiercely protective of individual rights but willing to advance them through big government (p. 331). What Woods gives us is not just a lifetime but a life and times. The book is filled with lbj and his circle and much more. It is, finally, a fluent and succinct course in modern U.S. history with richly detailed back-stories, sparkling character sketches, and mature, balanced judgments.