A review by unsponsoredbookreviews
The Path to Power by Robert A. Caro

5.0

Reading “The Path to Power” has been a personal project of mine for the last two months, chipping away a few pages at a time every night on Lyndon B. Johnson’s childhood or years in college before bed. I do think “project” is the right word because the book is an intimidating piece of non-fiction. My edition was well over a thousand pages and it only covers the first 32 years or so of LBJ’s life. The book serves as a towering history of early 20th century Texas politics while also building up the complicated and fraught character of one of the most impactful presidents in US history. There are a number of impressive facets of what Caro is able to do here but I think the most superlative part of his style as a biographer is his ability to fluidly pull from his extensive research and numerous interviews on the fly to create a seem less and comprehensible text. His flow is never stilted, there is a feeling of authority and assured ness with every sentence written that just feels unique in the non-fiction genre. Like I will never have to read another source on this info or period, I have already read the only source required.

I come away with the feeling that what I have learned so far of LBJ and US history will stick with me the rest of my life. I’m not going to rush into the next book in this series, Means of Ascent, but it will be marked for the future, maybe it will be next years summer project.