robert dalleks brilliant twovolume biography of lyndon johnson has received an avalanche of praise michael beschloss in the los angeles times said that it succeeds brilliantly the new york times called it rock solid and the washington post hailed it as invaluable and sidney blumenthal in the boston globe wrote that it was dense with astonishing incidentsnow dallek has condensed his twovolume masterpiece into what is surely the finest onevolume biography of johnson available based on years of research in over 450 manuscript collections and oral histories as well as numerous personal interviews this biography follows johnson the human dynamo from the texas hill country to the white house we see lbj in the house and the senate whirl his way through sixteen and eighteenhour days talking urging demanding reaching for influence and power in an uncommonly successful congressional career then in the white house we see johnson as the visionary leader who worked his will on congress like no president before or since enacting a range of crucial legislation from medicare and environmental protection to the most significant advances in civil rights for black americans ever achieved and we see the depth of johnsons private anguish as he became increasingly ensnared in vietnamin these pages johnson emerges as a man of towering intensity and anguished insecurity of grandiose ambition and grave selfdoubt a man who was brilliant crude intimidating compassionate overbearing driven a tornado in pants gracefully written and delicately balanced this