《走向权力的通道：林登·约翰逊的岁月》Robert A. Caro, "The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson"
《纽约时报》2012年度十大好书之一
2012 | ISBN-10: 0679405070 | EPUB, MOBI | 736 pages | 11 + 11 MB
Book Four of Robert A. Caro’s monumental The Years of Lyndon Johnson displays all the narrative energy and illuminating insight that led the Times of London to acclaim it as “one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age. A masterpiece.”
The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career—1958 to1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark.
By 1958, as Johnson began to maneuver for the presidency, he was known as one of the most brilliant politicians of his time, the greatest Senate Leader in our history. But the 1960 nomination would go to the young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Caro gives us an unparalleled account of the machinations behind both the nomination and Kennedy’s decision to offer Johnson the vice presidency, revealing the extent of Robert Kennedy’s efforts to force Johnson off the ticket. With the consummate skill of a master storyteller, he exposes the savage animosity between Johnson and Kennedy’s younger brother, portraying one of America’s great political feuds. Yet Robert Kennedy’s overt contempt for Johnson was only part of the burden of humiliation and isolation he bore as Vice President. With a singular understanding of Johnson’s heart and mind, Caro describes what it was like for this mighty politician to find himself altogether powerless in a world in which power is the crucial commodity.
For the first time, in Caro’s breathtakingly vivid narrative, we see the Kennedy assassination through Lyndon Johnson’s eyes. We watch Johnson step into the presidency, inheriting a staff fiercely loyal to his slain predecessor; a Congress determined to retain its power over the executive branch; and a nation in shock and mourning. We see how within weeks—grasping the reins of the presidency with supreme mastery—he propels through Congress essential legislation that at the time of Kennedy’s death seemed hopelessly logjammed and seizes on a dormant Kennedy program to create the revolutionary War on Poverty. Caro makes clear how the political genius with which Johnson had ruled the Senate now enabled him to make the presidency wholly his own. This was without doubt Johnson’s finest hour, before his aspirations and accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam.
In its exploration of this pivotal period in Johnson’s life—and in the life of the nation—The Passage of Power is not only the story of how he surmounted unprecedented obstacles in order to fulfill the highest purpose of the presidency but is, as well, a revelation of both the pragmatic potential in the presidency and what can be accomplished when the chief executive has the vision and determination to move beyond the pragmatic and initiate programs designed to transform a nation. It is an epic story told with a depth of detail possible only through the peerless research that forms the foundation of Robert Caro’s work, confirming Nicholas von Hoffman’s verdict that “Caro has changed the art of political biography.”
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作者：罗伯特·A·卡罗(Robert A. Caro)
出版社：克诺普夫出版社(Knopf)，2012年5月，定价35美元
简介：本书作者罗伯特·A·卡罗现年76岁，为两度普利策奖得主。本书为“约翰逊总统传记”系列第四卷，作者耗时十年写就，涵盖了约翰逊总统1958年至1964年以民主党人身份担任肯尼迪ZF副总统的时代，以及约翰逊如何在肯尼迪遇刺数小时内迅速揽得大权的经过。在卡罗笔下，约翰逊从一个来自得克萨斯州的穷小子跻身权力顶峰，与他善于弄权、贪婪无情而又行事诡秘的个性不无关系。作为调查型记者的职业习惯，卡罗细致审慎地追踪每一条线索，为传记写作进行了数千次采访，查阅了数以万计的文献资料。
《走向权力的通道：林登·约翰逊的岁月》(The Passage of Power The Years of Lyndon .rar
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