Winston Churchill, Visions of Glory by William Manchester

William Manchester was a great biographer in the second half of the twentieth century. Writing about Kennedy, the American Century as a whole, and most notably what is considered the definitive biography of Winston Churchill.

Manchester died before he could publish the last of the planned trilogy but we are told that the final book, much delayed, put together by another author from Manchester's notes will be published next month. For many who have loved the first two books this is great news.

Knowing that all the book would be available to me I began my much delayed plan to learn more about this legendary public figure. Having read several books about Franklin Roosevelt I was quite familiar with Churchill as a historic figure but wanted to learn more.

I have to say that in reading the first book in the series which covers Churchill from birth to 1932 I was sorely disappointed. I have not seen a bad review for the Manchester series. People love it, they call it a masterwork, I call it clunky and poorly written.

Sometimes you only feel what you feel. I love biographies, my reading history makes that clear. Some obvious potential problems for me with this book stand out, namely that much of the first 58 years of his life were spent in the lower echelons of government and certainly a great deal of the book examines his military career. It is well established that I am not a great military historian, my interest is slim in the nuts and bolts of war, who moved troops here, whose great strategy won this battle, perhaps it was preordained I would thus not like this book.

The book does offer a wide ranging look at Churchill's youth. It is not pretty. Born the grandson of a Duke Churchill was brought up in a life of privilege. Still for all that he had just as important is what he did not have. He did not have a loving family. His greatest patron in his early life, the one person who truly loved him, was his nanny. His mother was an American. Extramarital affairs were not considered stigmatized by the upper classes at this time and Jennie Churchill made sure she took advantage of this. By almost any standard she was a promiscuous woman even though she slept with only the best of men. His father was incapable of loving his son, any chance he had of changing was taken away by his being struck syphilitic after a drunken encounter with a crone in his youth. Perhaps the most freeing event of his youth for Churchill was when his father passed on and he no longer had to fight for acceptance and approval that was not to come.

This was all interesting and I do not object to biographies that go into minutiae. Still comparing Manchester's writing of Churchill's youth with, for example, Robert Carp's writing on the youth of Lyndon Johnson the contrast is remarkable. Perhaps if nothing else it shows the absolute stunning ability of Caro more than it does that Manchester was not the best biography writer.

Or it could mean nothing more than that for whatever reason this book did not work for me. I will plan at some point to pick up book two. Perhaps at that time in his life the material will be more interesting and will overcome the writing style of which I just cannot speak well of.

The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Master of the Senate by Robert A Caro

Exactly 27 score pages ago I began this book. It is a long one. It is not a Stephen King page turning long one either, more of a historical page turner. As I have read several different books along with this one I have been at it a couple of months. It is, however, well worth the effort.

The third in what will eventually be Robert A Caro's five volume on the life and times of Lyndon Baines Johnson this book examines the years of Johnson's time in the Senate, specifically 1948 to 1960.

Because Robert Caro does not just tell you about what happens, but also about why it happened and the history of events leading up to what happened the book begins with a full seventy pages of history of the United States Senate. Specifically it centers on how the specific nature of the Senate had allowed it to have a unique history. A history that in the first half of the nineteenth century meant that some of the greatest legislators in our history called the Senate home, including but not limited to Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. We see then in the twentieth century the Senate become the graveyard of all action. Why? Because of the filibuster and it's use by the Southern Senators that due to the Seniority System have all the power in the Senate.

Armed with this information we see how Johnson took the formerly, punch-less and powerless position of Majority Leader and transformed it into a position of ultimate power in Washington. Johnson possessed the art of legislation and deal-making few could ever match. Cajoling, convincing, threatening, whatever it took to get his opinion to be the way you voted was what LBJ would do.

At 1040 pages the book is certainly to long to talk about it in full. A couple of episodes briefly mentioned here might show in short what the great length of the book exhibits in detail. That is the warring nature of good and bad in Lyndon Johnson. It is said and shown that Johnson, from the time he helped the people in his home Hill Country of Texas gain access to electricity in the thirties, to his feelings on Civil Rights always vowed that if he was ever in a position to help the downtrodden that he would do so. It is also demonstrated that if that passion however ran up against his ambition that ambition always won.

Johnson would tell you that he had to put passion aside until he had enough power to make a difference and perhaps that is the case. Trying to walk that tightrope however often led to people on both sides of an issue not being totally happy with Johnson.

In this book we see Johnson use his ruthlessness, the bad Lyndon, to destroy a man named Leland Olds. The reason for this was that Olds in running a natural resources committee would not allow natural gas companies and refiners to make unlimited profits. Johnson highly indebted to Texas oil and gas manufacturers needed to do something for them. Their request was of course to remove Olds so a chairman more compliant to their wishes could be found. Reading this episode in Johnson's life, it took a couple of chapters, forced me to set the book down for a few days. One becomes so disgusted at his actions, his hypocrisy, and twisting of the facts to destroy this honest, credible, public servant that the need for a shower after reading it becomes manifest.

In the mid fifties Johnson had a heart attack, his family history of men having weak hearts was long and well noted, he did not expect to live, live he did however but the episode did change him a bit. His relationship with Ladybird, while still not conventionally loving, and certainly not monogamous, was one in which he respected and appreciated her more from that time on.

We see Johnson's ill fated run for the Democratic nomination in 1956, a time when the ultimate vote counter failed to count the votes correctly, or perhaps it should be said a time when he refused to count the votes that he could see.

The last quarter of the book tells the story of the 1957 Civil Rights Bill. It could, by itself, be a short book on the political genius of Lyndon Johnson. After 1956 Johnson knew that he could not seek or gain if he did seek national office without coming to some terms with the liberals in his own party. Those liberals after having seen him stand repeatedly with the Southern bloc of Senators as year after year Civil Rights Bills failed to get past the dreaded filibuster.

Johnson, with Richard Russell's blessing knew that he had to get " cleaned up" on Civil Rights in order to have a chance for the nomination, he had to lose the distrust he had built up over the years from the liberals. Still even with Russell's acquiescence to a Civil Rights Bill to help Johnson's cause the bill itself had so many roadblocks that it took a legislative miracle to pull it through. How Johnson did accomplish this is as good a lesson in the legislative process as you will ever see.

Along with the Johnson stories Caro continues his practice of offering illuminating profiles of some of the figures in history. The aforementioned Leland Olds, the gregarious, needing to please Hubert Humphrey, the Dean of the Senate, refined, cultured, but still racist Richard Russell and a young Frank Church newly elected to the Senate from Idaho in 1956. All of these profiles are wonderful.

As book four sits on my shelf waiting I have promised myself to finish the three or four other books I have going before I start another LBJ book but as anyone who follows literary notices knows there are not enough trees to provide paper for the magnitude of positive reviews given over and over for this series from Caro. What may prove to be the greatest biography series in modern times is still being produced.

Carve out six months of time before Book Five comes out in a couple of years and catch up this series of books. It is as good as it gets.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

I usually check Amazon for new books and books about to be published. Having done so I was familiar with this book when I saw it at the library last week. Knowing that the main character was a twelve year old girl I picked it up for either my daughter or wife to try.

As these things happen though, I found myself tired of the LBJ biography I am reading, a great book but did Caro have to write them so long, needing a break from David Copperfield, and caught up on The New Yorker, so I picked this up and read the synopsis on the book jacket.

Turns out this book has a bit of an end of the world plotline and I have a hard time resisting those so I picked it up. Ten pages in I was hooked.

The book opens quickly, " the news broke on a Saturday." Somehow, inexplicably, over a couple of days the revolutions of the Earth that create night and day have slowed. Day and night are now taking longer, that is the Earth's spinning is slowing. Julia and her parents are in shock, her Father a physician says that everything will be fine, while her Mother a drama teacher is less sure. Some people react with fear, hoarding food, and proclaiming the end of the world. Julia's friend Hanna, her best friend, leaves with her large family to go to Utah to await the end that is near.

The end does not appear to be near though. The days and nights keep expanding. Soon up to 30 hours. No one knows how long a day will be. This creates problems with clocks which become useless the periods of light and dark soon do not match any prescribed expectations.

Finally as the days continue to stretch the President and Congress say that people should and that the government and businesses will continue to operate on a 24 hour day. This means that people will at times go to bed in the light and go to school and work in the dark.

More is at stake however. As the days lengthen to 30 and 40 hours the issue of food becomes an issue. The wheat point is passed, a point where wheat can no longer be grown. Unbeknownst to me crops need sunlight on the rhythm they expect, twenty hours of sunlight does not make up for the same in darkness.

Some people refuse clock time and insist the body can change it's circadian rhythms. They succeed for awhile but they become outcasts, people do not trust them, they when it is light at the " prescribed night time" are out and about while everyone sleeps.

For those not like me, and who need more than this angle the story also tells the tale of Julia. A normal, geeky, twelve year old girl who is still struggling with junior high, boys, her parents, a secret she knows about her father and the lady down the street, the ever expanding list of people in her life who have disappeared as the days lengthen, her mother's gravity sickness and her grandfather's conspiracy theories.

There is a great deal of story in this book of less than 300 pages. Not a book I would ever presume to read but a very good book. The praise it is receiving is well earned.

Now it's back to LBJ.

Means of Ascent by Robert Caro

This is the second book in the Caro life project of telling the tale of LBJ. My wife the other night when I told her Caro had finished the fourth ( but not final ) book in his series asked me " Was LBJ that important? "

The answer is a resounding yes though one has to dig such as Caro does to understand why. So much of what is politics today is a result of LBJ and his efforts.

For example in 1948 LBJ brought about the modern political campaign with his helicopter and media buys. Coke Stevenson ran an old style campaign. That Johnson stole the election is a pretty well known fact. That there was thievery on both sides is not as well documented. Still in Caro's telling Coke Stevenson comes across as a pretty remarkable character. One we could use today.

Johnson was under the thumb financially to Brown and Root a large contractor in Texas. The book does not advise this but it is a fact known to anyone who looks deep enough that as Brown and Root grew and bought other companies it became Haliburton. Knowing what we know of Johnson if that does not make sense you are not paying attention.

Johnson and his life were life changing for all of us. In his foreword to Book Two Caro talks about how Johnson's life had threads of good and bad that concurrently ran. Johnson and the War in Vietnam was perhaps the first and biggest straw that broke the prestige of the Presidency. The fact that a majority of Americans hold the office in less respect runs back in a straight line to Johnson.

In Book Two Caro tells us their is only one thread. The seven years between 1941 and 1948 were Johnson's time in the wilderness. He hated being in the House but had lost his chance at a Senate seat in the War. He did not see the future he wanted. This was when he almost got out of politics and indeed his media empire grew exponentially at this time.

The election of 1948 was everything. Caro in detail tells us about this election. Johnson collapsed with kidney stones still trying to campaign. Perhaps the biggest correlation to our modern elections would be to Bush/Gore in 2000. Johnson with his late ballots from Box 13. Stevenson seeking relief from the courts. Johnson's folks appealing the decision to review the ballots and while waiting for a ruling that would stop the process and stop Johnson's win doing everything they could to delay the hearing they were in to open the ballots. Finally a higher court intercedes. Who helped Johnson primarily in this endeavor. Abe Fortas. Who did Johnson put on the Supreme Court later. Abe Fortas. In Texas it works like that.

One should remember Johnson and I paraphrase had said that he would always turn in his votes last after the 1942 debacle in which he lost a Senate race by thinking he had it won and not even cheating could take it. With that in mind perhaps one can understand that Johnson is only the most famous of mid twentieth century vote stealer's in Texas.

Johnson did some great things and from his heart. He is not a black hearted figure. He is a man raised in poverty determined to help those who were poor. He also however wanted power and held on to it at all costs.

Johnson was like the proverbial man with the angel and the devil on his shoulder. A great book.

The Path to Power by Robert Caro ( Book One in The Years of Lyndon Johnson)

Robert Caro is known as a master biographer and his series on Lyndon Johnson is perhaps the best biographical series ever published on a President. The detail in this series is stunning and makes this a wonderful resource but also not a series for the casual reader. This book of 700 pages only takes us through the death of FDR.

We read about Johnson's history, his families history and how both his families history and the history of the geographical area known as the Hill Country affected him and his belief system.

Johnson saw his father who as a young boy was his hero lose everything in various times and was determined to have money.

Johnson was determined to be a success and really had no political ethics to get in the way. He was in bed to a great degree with the Texas oil interests especially Brown and Root ( which interestingly became todays Haliburton ). Wanting to be with the winning side he proclaimed his belief in the Roosevelt plan and convinced his money backers that hated Roosevelt to forget his spoken word in favor of FDR for the favors and protections he would give them.

Johnson was not all evil. He was an extreme opportunist. He put electricity in the Hill Country of Texas perhaps ten to fifteen years before they might otherwise have received it but he did so to help his political career as much as to help those inhabitants.

This book in its breadth offers great looks at figures such as Vice President Garner, Sam Rayburn and Pappy Daniels. These in themselves are revaluations. Johnson's complicated relationship with Rayburn is detailed well.

Enough good things cannot be said about this book. Johnson is at various times petty, hateful, loving and good. He is perhaps the most complex politician of his times and this book tells us of his beginnings.

Wonderfully done.