Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House

by Joshua Zeitz

The author of Lincoln's Boys takes us inside Lyndon Johnson's White House to show how the legendary Great Society programs were actually put into Team of Rivals for LBJ. The personalities behind every burst of 1960s liberal reform - from civil rights and immigration reform, to Medicare and Head Start."Absorbing, and astoundingly well-researched -- all good historians do their homework, but Zeitz goes above and beyond. It's a more than worthwhile addition to the canon of books about Johnson."--NPR"Beautifully written...a riveting portrait of LBJ... Every officeholder in Washington would profit from reading this book." --Robert Dallek, Author of An Unfinished John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 and Franklin D. A Political LifeLBJ's towering political skills and his ambitious slate of liberal legislation are the stuff of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, and environmental reform. But what happened after the bills passed? One man could not and did not go it alone. Joshua Zeitz reanimates the creative and contentious atmosphere inside Johnson's White House as a talented and energetic group of advisers made LBJ's vision a reality. They desegregated public and private institutions throughout one third of the United States; built Medicare and Medicaid from the ground up in one year; launched federal funding for public education; provided food support for millions of poor children and adults; and launched public television and radio, all in the space of five years, even as Vietnam strained the administration's credibility and budget.Bill Moyers, Jack Valenti, Joe Califano, Harry McPherson and the other staff members who comprised LBJ's inner circle were men as pragmatic and ambitious as Johnson, equally skilled in the art of accumulating power or throwing a sharp elbow. Building the Great Society is the story of how one of the most competent White House staffs in American history - serving one of the most complicated presidents ever to occupy the Oval Office - fundamentally changed everyday life for millions of citizens and forged a legacy of compassionate and interventionist government.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Presidents, Biography, Economics

397 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 30, 2018

About the author

Josh Zeitz has taught American history and politics at Cambridge University, Harvard University, and Princeton University. He is the author of several books on American political and social history and has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Dissent, American Heritage, and Mother Jones.

Josh also appeared as a commentator on two PBS documentaries –Boomer Century, and Ken Burns's Prohibition.

A former gubernatorial speechwriter and policy aide, Josh earned his B.A. with highest honors at Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. in American History at Brown University. He lives in Hoboken and Ocean Grove, New Jersey with his wife, Angela Zeitz, an artist, and their two daughters.

Follow him on Twitter at @JoshuaMZeitz

Reviews

[Mackey · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We have the opportunity to move, not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.” Lyndon Johnson

I find that reading and reviewing books about recent history often is difficult for two reasons: not enough time has passed since the events themselves and our own opinions and thoughts about the event cloud our judgement. Keeping both of those things in mind, I found “Building the Great Society” to be a thoroughly documented, well written synopsis of Lyndon Johnson’s inner sanctum, his dealings with Congress at the time and ultimately what became his legacy – The Great Society Legislation.

Johnson was not a favorite president, he wasn’t even well liked at the time. He gets blamed, often, for the US involvement in Vietnam and, to an extent rightly so since it was during his tenure that the war escalated. However, this book is not about foreign policy and the Vietnam War gets very little coverage. This is about Johnson’s domestic policy for which he is not given nearly enough credit.

It is important to remember that one of the most popular presidents had been assassinated, the world, including the US, was rushing head-long into a civil rights movement that was growing more violent by the day, and the Cold War had been escalated by both Eisenhower and the USSR. All of this was placed on Johnson’s shoulders with the death of Kennedy. Building the Great Society walks us through the various pieces of legislation that, quite literally, put a grieving country back together again and through its expansion into social programs helped, not only the poor, the African Americans, but introduced the first vestiges of rights for women. As hard as it is to imagine or remember, prior to the 1960s, women were not allowed to have their own bank accounts, own their own property without having a man – husband, father, uncle – SOME MALE – cosign with them. When we think of domestic policy in the 60s, the very basic human rights that we take for granted today, simply did not exist then. Sadly, far too many Americans assume those rights always have and always will exist for all. Clearly, they have not and will not.

I never was a fan of Johnson when I was younger. It is only recently – visiting his library, reading books such as this one – that I have come to understand his, and his wife’s, contribution to America. Whether you like him or not, know nothing about his presidency or simply would like to know more, I highly recommend Building the Great Society. It is a thorough and unbiased look at the Johnson years.

Much appreciation to the author, Joshua Zeitz, #Netgalley and #Penguin-Viking Press for my copy of this book.

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyndon Johnson was a reluctant Vice President. He had hoped and planned for the presidency, and he despised the second spot. As a VP, he related to the observation made by Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's VP, that the Vice President "is like a man in a cataleptic state. He cannot speak. He cannot move. He suffers no pain. And yet he is conscious of all that goes on around him." John F. Kennedy aggravated Johnson's sense of being eclipsed and useless. Harvard-educated, young, handsome, charming, urbane, a northeastern aristocrat, JFK appeared to be everything his Vice President was not. "Every time I came into John Kennedy's presence, I felt like a goddamn raven hovering over his shoulder," LBJ recalled. He looked so sullen and depressed all the time even the President noticed, telling Florida Senator George Smathers he "cannot stand Johnson's damn long face."
This is why in November 1963 Johnson wanted to go to Texas with the President. The Kennedy clan kept distancing themselves from him, and the fact that his already tense relatiosnship with Robert Kennedy was deteoriorating even more didn't sooth his fear that JFK might drop him from the ticket the following year. Johnson took special pains to assure the President would be welcomed in his home state. Well, as we know, the visit to Dallas did not go well for Kennedy at all, but it was not his VP's fault.
The cruel and shocking act propelled the somber Vice President to the highest post, and during the first days of his presidency LBJ changed drastically. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman commented on seeing “a different Lyndon Johnson than from the past 3 years. Actually the frustration seemed gone, he seemed relaxed, the power, the confidence, the assurance of Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson seemed to be there."
The new president was famously addicted to the telephone and had already placed myriad calls to congressional leaders, cabinet members, foreign heads of state, and corporate chieftains. “You know, when I went into that office tonight and they [his economic and military advisers] came in and started briefing me on what I have to do,” he told his aides, “do you realize that every issue that is on my desk tonight was on my desk when I came to Congress in 1937?” Civil rights. Health insurance for the elderly and the poor. Federal aid to primary and secondary education. Support for higher education. Antipoverty and nutritional programs.
It was twelve hours after Johnson assumed the powers of the presidency that the first cornerstone was laid for the Great Society.

"Boundless in his appetite for power and recognition, extreme in his personal habits and style, Lyndon Johnson was both a towering historical figure and a bundle of jarring contradictions," writes Joshua Zeitz. He was both an unscupulous opportunist and a champion of the poor, a progressive hero and a bugbear of the anti-war Left, a crass political operator and a liberal idealist. But while he did use his mastery of the political process to push ambitious liberal legislation through Congress in 1964-65, he could not have done it all alone.
Securing the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a huge accomplishment in its own right, but, argues Zeitz, it was another matter entirely to have it mean something — to use the whole influence of the federal government to desegregate public and private institutions peacefully throughout one-third of the United States. Equally remarkable was the Johnson administration’s success in building programs like Medicare and Medicaid, transforming the manner in which American elementary and secondary education was funded, providing food security to tens of millions of impoverished children and adults, inventing public television and radio, and restructuring the federal government’s relationship with ordinary citizens on a scale unseen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration — all in the span of five years, even as the Vietnam War increasingly strained the administration’s credibility and means to advance its domestic agenda.

"One man could not and did not do it alone," concludes Zeitz, and his book gives us a vivid portrait of the energetic and talented group of advisers that made LBJ's vision a reality. Some of them, like Jack Valenti, found themselves accidentally in the right place at the right time. Others, like Bill Moyers, made sure to put themselves there. Most, like Joe Califano, were relatively young men in their thirties and early forties, but LBJ, who aspired to exceed FDR’s achievements, also turned regularly for counsel to a small group of New Deal veterans whom he had known since his early days in Congress. Most of LBJ’s staff were Texans: Walter Jenkins, Bill Moyers, and Jack Valenti; Horace Busby, Johnson’s "in-house intellectual of long standing"; Harry McPherson and Marvin Watson, who joined in 1965. Yet most were men of broad learning and experience, and it sometimes astonished political observers how well they worked with the “best and brightest” of the Ivy League set who had come to Washington to join John Kennedy’s New Frontier, only to make history in Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Though different in temperament and background, each staff member believed that government should support the creation of economic opportunity for its citizens and "[smooth] out the rougher edges of liberal capitalism." Each was also, in his own way, as pragmatic as Johnson himself — attuned to the workings of political power, "skilled in the art of throwing a sharp elbow or building an administrative empire," and hungry for position and prominence.

Richard Goodwin, a former Kennedy aide who later joined LBJ’s staff as chief speechwriter, devised the term “Great Society.” Often linked with the “War on Poverty” — a term that Johnson introduced in his first State of the Union address in 1964 — the Great Society included antipoverty programs, but its goal was to maximize the individual citizen’s ability to realize his or her fullest potential; the War on Poverty was just one part of it. The Great Society was criticized as a tool for economic redistribution that led millions of Americans into a state of permanent dependency on the government, "but in truth," argues Zeitz, "LBJ and his aides never seriously contemplated policies that would enforce equality of income, wealth, or condition." Instead of guaranteeing a minimum income, they believed that education, workforce training, access to health care and food security, and full political empowerment would ensure everyone equal opportunity to share in the nation’s prosperity.
This idea was born from the confidence inherent to postwar America. The United States had survived the Great Depression and defeated fascism in both Europe and the Pacific, and in the two decades that followed, Americans benefited from seemingly boundless economic growth. John Kennedy challenged his fellow citizens to “explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths . . . encourage the arts and commerce [and] heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah — to ‘undo the heavy burdens . . . and to let the oppressed go free.’” Echoing his predecessor’s ambition, LBJ called on the nation to defeat “ignorance, illiteracy, ill health and disease.” The architects of the Great Society believed that to create a more just and equal society you don't have to cut the pie into smaller pieces so that everyone would get one — you had to bake a bigger pie.

The Great Society was latter widely criticized for what it failed to achieve. It did not eliminate poverty. It did not establish a minimum family income. It did not extend quality medical care and educational opportunity to all Americans. It did not alleviate the conditions in urban America or rural areas. According to George Ready, who served as Johnson’s White House press secretary and special assistant, the sweeping promises associated with the Great Society “may have had a negative impact on the willingness of Americans to trust such efforts.” When those measures did not meet the grandiose expectations, many Americans came to agree with LBJ’s conservative critics that government itself was the problem. In a scorching address delivered some two decades later, Ronald Reagan expressed conservative criticism of the Great Society as a bundle of expensive and failed initiatives that contributed to poverty.

"Yet if Johnson and his aides overpromised, they also outperformed," disagrees Zeitz. "Few presidents have left in place so sweeping a list of positive domestic accomplishments." Medicare, public television, integrated hotels and restaurants, federal aid to primary and secondary schools, and college loans are all measures that continue to enjoy wide support today. Moreover, argues the author, if LBJ’s Great Society failed in its ambition to eliminate poverty, "it took a sizable bite out of it." With the help of food stamps, Medicaid, and housing subsidies (all products of the Great Society), the poverty rate fell by 26 percent between 1960 and 2010, with two-thirds of the decline occurring before 1980. Some groups, like African Americans and the elderly, experienced an abrupt drop in poverty.
Equally underappreciated are Johnson and his aides' efforts to battle Jim Crow. No other administration since Abe Lincoln's had used so much of the government's weight so persistently to disrupt the economic, social and political privilege many white Americans had long been taking for granted. Desegregation was a central theme that ran throughout most of the Great Society's key initiatives, from health care and education to voting rights and urban renewal, argues Zeitz. Moreover, Johnson’s White House knowingly took the fight beyond the South and challenged much of the hidden privilege that white northerners had grown to expect — privilege that came in the form of the seemingly accidental segregation in residential neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.

Unfortunately, the Vietnam War did much to undermine the President's credibility and standing with the American public. By 1967, it had become clear that the country couldn't have "both guns and butter," and LBJ's intiatives fell into disrepute. For some fifty years, he would be known as a “flawed giant” who, in his own words, “left the woman I love — the Great Society — in order to fight that bitch of a war.”
However, as Zeitz demonstrates us in his outstanding work, LBJ was a skilled President who assembled one of the finest White House staffs and showed as much success in establishing and administering programs as he did in securing their passage. Although constantly presented as a "country cousin" who couldn't match his dashing predecessor, in fact he used the talent that resided in American universities and thinktanks much more extensively. A man of great personal ambition, he deliberately comrpomised his political well-being in support of causes that he knew to be controversial at the time, and he encouraged his young staff to appreciate that power is only as meaningful as how — and for what purpose — one uses it.
“He felt entitled to every available lever, to help from every person, every branch of government, every business and labor leader,” recalled Joe Califano, one of the brightest Great Society architects. “After all, as he often reminded us, he was the only President we had.”

[Julian Douglass · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic account of the Great Society, the promises, the triumphs, and the tragedies of it and the Johnson Presidency. Well researched and written, Mr. Zeitz tells the story of the Great Society and how the effects of the battles fought during its creation and implementation are still fought today. Great read and a great story.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in Seventh grade in the spring of 1964 when I was asked who I was voting for in the mock election. I asked who was running.

"Well," I was told, "there's Barry Goldwater who wants war and may use the Atom bomb, and there's LBJ who wants to end poverty." 

I voted for LBJ, enchanted by his Great Society idealism.

I have been fascinated by President Johnson for years and have read multiple biographies him. My political awareness was formed under his presidency. I was a junior in high school when President Johnson gave his speech that ended announcing he would not seek reelection.

Building the Great Society by Joshua Zeitz is exactly the kind of book I enjoy, one that puts my personal memories into historical perspective, fleshed out with historical insight that I lacked at the time. I also appreciated learning how the programs impacted lives and the motivation behind their critics' desire to dismantle them.

*****
In 1963 America was at a pinnacle of economic boom, with the rise of the Middle Class and a huge increase in the Gross National Product. It was a time of fast food restaurants and power steering, electricity in every home powering refrigerators and televisions and stereos. My family had just moved to Metro Detroit, Dad seeking employment in the auto industry. Getting that job gave my family economic stability and badly needed health care.

At the same time millions of Americans were left behind in poverty, including populations in Appalachia and rural America. One-fifth of the population lived at or below the poverty line of $3,000 for a family of four. The majority of the impoverished were Caucasian, but a higher percentage of African Americans were impoverished--40%. And female headed households were 50% impoverished.

After assuming the presidency following the assassination of President Kennedy, President Johnson identified himself as a "Roosevelt New Dealer" who found Kennedy "a little too conservative." But his history of voting with the Dixiecrats against legislation addressing African American equality left many doubtful.

Zeitz paints a picture of Liberals' belief in the sustainability of the Great Society programs, writing that "the idea that the economy might someday stop growing rarely factored seriously into liberal thinking."

Government's impact in solving social ills was not a new idea. The New Deal Programs envisioned by President Johnson were rooted in the New Deal public works programs of President Roosevelt. "The War on Poverty" was an term first used by President Kennedy in a 1960 campaign speech. "The Great Society" was the title of a book by Walter Lippmann. President Johnson used the term "Great Society" in a speech at the University of Michigan in May, 1964, drafted by Richard Goodwin. 

According to Charles Roberts, Bill Moyers was the "Presidents' good angel, representing his conscience when there's a conflict between conscience and expediency." 

The Great Society programs were not instituted predominately for urban African Americans; that stereotype came later, from Republicans who were hostile to the programs.

Zeitz follows Johnson's presidency and the events of the time: the impact and legacy of the Great Society programs; the Viet Nam War siphoning money and energy away; Robert Kennedy's candidacy and assassination; riots and civil unrest at home; the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; George Wallace and his platform of rage and hate (that gave my little brother nightmares!); and Nixon's secret campaign to sabotage Johnson's peace talks.

Nixon did not dismantle all the programs; many continued to thrive while other did not. It was a time of environmental awareness, and Nixon established the EPA and NOAA and addressed clean air and water issues.

The economic theories of the early 60s did not pan out. Poverty is still with us. But the Great Society programs have impacted society for the better, especially in areas of equality, access to food and health care. Zeitz warns that the Trump administration dismantling the Great Society programs may cause a backfire: "When the pendulum swings back, it may swing hard," with a more radical approach.

More than 'just' a history lesson, this book also informed me about the changing attitudes and policies concerning social issues and especially how we got to 'here', a time when Republican leaders are determined to dismantle the Great Society legacy. 

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Randal White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, however, not earth shattering. I much preferred Robert Caro's biography of LBJ. There just is not a lot of new ground covered here.

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there is any well-worn tale in modern political history, it is that of LBJ's White House and the push for the Great Society. Besides classic insider works like Daniel Patrick Moynihan's "Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding," there is Nicholas Lemann's "The Promised Land," and the Robert Caro's "Passage of Power" (at least for the first year of LBJ's time in office, the following years are forthcoming), not to mention dozens of others. This one doesn't claim to have unearthed any new documents, and the sad roster at the end shows that almost all of the main players died before the book was written, but it at least provides a succinct overview of the era. Most importantly, the book tries to refocus on a dozen or so White House aides that worked with Johnson to implement his plans.

The problem, however, is that Johnson was so overwhelming as a personal force that even his most talented aides tend to blur together. Besides the hyperkinetic and scheming ex-pastor, Bill Moyers, you had a few other main players there are occasionally hard to tell apart. There is Horace Busy, "Buzz," a former reporter who was almost as obsessed with 1930s Washington and the New Deal as Johnson, and who became a kind of in-house intellectual. He had left LBJ's staff in 1951 and wrote a newsletter "The AMerican Businessman" that indicated his gradual rightward drift, but he came back for Johnson's Presidency and made himself a liberal again. George Reedy, also a well-read reporter, had replaced Buzz with Johnson back in 1951, and became Johnson's alter-ego and jack-of-all trades. Jack Valenti, a university journalist and later an advertising executive in Houston, gradually took on the position of scheduler and Cabinet secretary, but also, to other reporters, the president's unofficial "valet."

In general, Johnson preferred a "loose" style of management, so there was no chief-of-staff, mainly and few clear job titles. It was not clear what Moyers did or Reedy or, later, ex-Pentagon aide and effective domestic policy czar Joseph Califano did, or half-a-dozen others. Johnson assigned them tasks and they worked them or expanded htem. The book is best when it goes into the nitty-gritty of these tasks, like when Doug Cater, son of an Alabama state legislator who served at OSS and then at the magazine "Reporter," sent out negotiators to just about every Southern school district to agree to integration plans after the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was signed, with Johnson pushing him to get every last one on board. Or when Larry O'Brien, a holdover from the Kennedys, created the modern legislative liaison office, and stayed up the President late into the night counting votes. In general, however, it's tough to differentiate what all these players, often similar in background, were doing.

The book veers more than need be into a general history of the 1960s, of the rise of Nixon, of the counterculture protests, of the Democratic Convention riots, but it keeps the story moving along, the characters interesting, and the relevance obvious. It's a solid read.

[Jim Cullison · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best antidote to excessive anxiety about current events is immersion in American history, and with this fascinating book on the Great Society's construction crew, Joshua Zeitz provides a most sturdy prescription for headline-related despair and dismay. In his meticulously detailed and always absorbing history of LBJ's White House, Zeitz focuses on the hitherto overlooked Dream Team that made the Great Society happen: LBJ's staff. The authentically visionary (if behaviorally vile) colossus that was Lyndon Baines Johnson is often relegated to the periphery of Zeitz' narrative, allowing the reader to learn about Bill Moyers, Larry O'Brien, Harry McPherson, Joe Califano, and other highly talented and tenacious young men who toiled tirelessly on behalf of some truly remarkable and enduring social achievements. Zeitz has performed an outstanding historical service by furnishing this riveting account of momentous times and monumental achievements in American governance. A very great read.

[Biblio Files (takingadayoff) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyndon Johnson is either the best president or the worst. His efforts on Civil Rights and The Great Society were politically risky and I'm convinced he accomplished more than Kennedy would have. But Vietnam...

Joshua Zeitz leaves that dilemma to the reader as he explores the inner workings and the personalities all around Johnson inside the White House. It's a revealing picture of what happened during the transition, then the in house debates over Civil Rights and Medicare and sneaking up from the shadows, Vietnam. For my money the most surprising profile was of Bill Moyers, who was a young aide who was rather serious and pious (he had been a preacher), but turned out to have a ruthless side when it came to handling the press and even the White House staff.

Building the Great Society is my appetizer before I tackle Robert Caro's multi volume biography of LBJ.

(Thanks to Penguin/Viking and NetGalley for a digital review copy.)

[Armen · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are few Presidents who have changed the way that Americans live. In the past 50 years, there is Nixon (the Environmental Protection Agency), Reagan (the rise of right-wing rhetoric), Bush II (the War on Terror) and far more than any of these - Lyndon Baines Johnson. Here is a short list of the major legislation that was passed during his brief time as President (Nov. 1963 to Jan 1969):
1963
1. College Facilities
2. Clean Air
3. Vocational Education
4. Indian Vocational Training
5. Manpower Training

1964
1. Inter-American Development Bank
2. Kennedy Cultural Center
3. Tax Reduction
4. Farm Program
5. Pesticide Controls
6. International Development Association
7. Civil Rights Act of 1964
8. Water Resources Research
9. War on Poverty
10. Criminal Justice
11. Truth-in-Securities
12. Food Stamps
13. Housing Act
14. Wilderness Areas
15. Nurse Training
16. Library Services

1965
1. Medicare
2. Medicaid
3. Elementary and Secondary Education
4. Higher Education
5. Bilingual Education
6. Department of Housing and Urban Development
7. Housing Act
8. Voting Rights
9. Immigration Reform Law
10. Older Americans
11. Heart, Cancer, Stroke Program
12. Law Enforcement Assistance
13. Drug Controls
14. Mental Health Facilities
15. Health Professions
16. Medical Libraries
17. Vocational Rehabilitation
18. Anti-Poverty Program
19. Arts and Humanities Foundation
20. Aid to Appalachia
21. Highway Beauty
22. Clean Air
23. Water Pollution Control
24. High Speed Transit
25. Manpower Training
26. Child Health
27. Community Health Services
28. Water Resources Council
29. Water Desalting
30. Juvenile Delinquency Control
31. Arms Control
32. Affirmative Action

1966
1. Child Nutrition
2. Department of Transportation
3. Truth in Packaging
4. Model Cities
5. Rent Supplements
6. Teachers Corps
7. Asian Development Bank
8. Clean Rivers
9. Food for Freedom
10. Child Safety
11. Narcotics Rehabilitation
12. Traffic Safety
13. Highway Safety
14. Mine Safety
15. International Education
16. Bail Reform
17. Auto Safety
18. Tire Safety
19. New GI Bill
20. Minimum Wage Increase
21. Urban Mass Transit
22. Civil Procedure Reform
23. Fish-Wildlife Preservation
24. Water for Peace
25. Anti-Inflation Program
26. Scientific Knowledge Exchange
27. Protection for Savings
28. Freedom of Information
29. Hirshhorn Museum

1967
1. Education Professions
2. Education Act
3. Air Pollution Control
4. Partnership for Health
5. Social Security Increases
6. Age Discrimination
7. Wholesome Meat
8. Flammable Fabrics
9. Urban Research
10. Public Broadcasting
11. Outer Space Treaty
12. Modern D.C. Government
13. Federal Judicial Center
14. Deaf-Blind Center
15. College Work Study
16. Summer Youth Programs
17. Food Stamps
18. Urban Fellowships
19. Safety at Sea Treaty
20. Narcotics Treaty
21. Anti-Racketeering
22. Product Safety Commission
23. Inter-American Bank

1968
1. Fair Housing
2. Indian Bill of Rights
3. Safe Streets
4. Wholesome Poultry
5. Commodity Exchange Rules
6. School Breakfasts
7. Truth-in-Lending
8. Aircraft Noise Abatement
9. New Narcotics Bureau
10. Gas Pipeline Safety
11. Fire Safety
12. Sea Grant Colleges
13. Tax Surcharge
14. Housing Act
15. International Monetary Reform
16. Fair Federal Juries
17. Juvenile Delinquency Prevention
18. Guaranteed Student Loans
19. Health Manpower
20. Gun Controls
21. Aid-to-Handicapped Children
22. Heart, Cancer and Stroke Programs
23. Hazardous Radiation Protection
24. Scenic Rivers
25. Scenic Trails
26. National Water Commission
27. Vocational Education
28. Dangerous Drug Control
29. Military Justice Code
30. Tax Surcharge

It is an overwhelming record of legislation that changed America forever and for better.

When advisers cautioned him that he was going to be hurt politically because of his stand on racial prejudice, he responded, "what the hell is the Presidency for if you can't do what is right."

Yes, LBJ had his faults, but all politicians have those faults - the need for attention, to be loved, to wield power.. But there is no politician that can match his achievement.

Of course, he was wrong on Vietnam, but he knew that. Just listen to the tapes of his private conversations and you will hear a man who knows that the war in Vietnam was going nowhere, was wasting billions of dollars and costing tens of thousands of lives for nothing - for less than nothing. So why did he keep it up? That is a question that would take a book to answer - a book about the America that had created the lie of monolithic communism and then came to believe its own lie.

So, read Joshua Zeitz' Building the Great Society and see what a real President looks and sounds like. See how a real President deals with injustice and prejudice. Listen to the great words that inspire and speak to our better angels and hopes and not our worse fears and phobias. Listen to Lyndon Baines Johnson, our greatest modern President.

[Melissa Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look into the LBJ White House, Joshua Zeitz takes a close look at the personalities and policies that shaped Johnson’s Presidency. Many of these men (and they are almost all men) are familiar figures to those of us who were sentient during the Johnson administration, but the interplay of their personalities and particularly their relationships with the president are detailed and human.

Although Zeitz treats the passage of the Civil Rights Bill in detail, he doesn’t shed any new light on the transformation of LBJ from a typical southerner to an advocate of civil rights… a transformation that I still find baffling and fascinating.

Although much doubt can be cast on the means that the Johnson administration employed to end segregation and poverty and, there is no question in my mind that their aim was true, and the Democratic party is still struggling to understand and implement their goals. The highly poliitically disruptive tactics of Johnson’s team and the high costs and tenacity of the Vietnam war led to its ultimate downfall, but along the way they raised a generation of political activists equal to the founders.

The lessons of the Great Society are still with us. The deep class/racial resentment that fueled Wallace’s political campaign flared to hideous rebirth in 2016. History being the best teacher might have led to Trump being taken seriously, as was Goldwater. Zeitz spends some time at the end of the book discussing the parallels between the Nixon administration and the Trump administration, both follow-ons to deeply liberal presidencies, but the view is understandably foreshortened.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an informative book about the monumental social revolution President Lyndon Johnson initiated with his Great Society programs. Author Joshua Zeitz brings the White House cabinet to life regarding the historical reasoning and the implementation of signature programs such as Head Start, Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act.

These programs all had opposition going through Congress and implementation in various states that vividly painted both de facto and de jure segregation in the mid 1960s. None of this was implemented without Southern political backlash and this book illustrates resistance Southern states initially had regarding equal treatment under Medicare/Medicaid to name one example.

The drawback to this book is the process of implementing legislation often is mundane and individual cabinet members did not necessarily stand out due to my lack of familiarity with many individuals that served LBJ. The Vietnam War is mentioned but namely as a backdrop to how it stalled Great Society programs and how the nation would be in a state of political/social revolt in 1968.

The afterward to this book was quite strong and it summarized Johnson's domestic achievements fifty years later. It also compared the inter-agency and bureaucratic workings Johnson utilized to achieve his public policies. Zeitz compared it to the present-day approach of how President Trump implements policy which showcases awareness of the current events, a contrast of Presidencies, and the relevance Lyndon Johnson's programs have in the present.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very insightful and balanced look at the great society and LBJ's presidency

[Lara Reading Wild · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for every American.

[Matt Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When [Joe] Califano caved on several of [John, a GOP adversary] McClellan's key demands, LBJ rose from his chair and fixed his intense stare on the young aide.

'Open your fly,' he instructed. Califano laughed obligingly, 'knowing he wasn't serious but surprised nonetheless.'

'Unzip your fly,' the president repeated, 'because there's nothing in there. John McClellan just cut it off with a razor so sharp you didn't even notice it.'

The president proceeded to reach the errant senator by telephone. 'John,' he began, 'I'm calling about Joe Califano. You cut his pecker off and put it in your desk drawer. Now I'm sending him back up there to get it from you.'" -- page 280, "Building The Great Society"

I've read more about Lyndon Baines Johnson than any other human being living or dead. Which, for many, begs the question: Why?

Read that excerpt above and answer this question in return: Why not? Was ever there a more entertaining, more humane, more flawed, more complicated, more politically-savvy man behind the big desk in the Oval Office than LBJ? No. Period.

So I have and will continue to read every Johnson tome I can acquire, from Robert Caro, to Robert Dallek, to Doris Kearns Goodwin, to Merle Miller, to Bill Manchester, to Betty Caroli. No one had to twist my arm -- I was not going to skip Joshua Zeitz's new book, "Building The Great Society -- Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House." And I'm glad I didn't skip it, as it is a very fine book, indeed.

Zeitz chronicles not just the LBJ presidency (which is infinitely interesting in it's own right), but also the lives of his coterie of White House aides. People like Jack Valenti, Horace Busby, Bill Moyers, the aforementioned Joe Califano and Harry McPherson; the men who largely assembled the 36th president's sweeping legislative agenda. The story of how these varied and occasionally bombastic personalities managed to coalesce into perhaps the highest-functioning staff in White House history is quite a page-turner.

With Robert Caro's long-awaited fifth and final volume (chronicling the bulk of the Johnson presidency, as well as his retirement and death) still to-be-completed, Zeitz's timely book does more than whet the appetites of LBJ fanboys. It is well-researched and well-written enough to stand on its own as a strong analysis of this complicated period in American history.

Other than Caro and Robert Dallek, no one has done a better job than Zeitz of capturing the warring personalities not just within LBJ's White House, but within LBJ himself. Readers ride the roller coaster of moods for which former president was famous -- and they become acquainted with his predilection for strange work hours, nonstop phone calls and, often, his surplus of comfort with his own body (the anecdote of a Johnson aide being ask to identify a possible boil on the commander-in-chief's backside is worth the price of the book alone. Spoiler alert: it was a boil.)

Crassness and Vietnam War mismanagement aside, who has ever done more good for more Americans in such a short time than Lyndon Baines Johnson? Head Start. Medicaid. Medicare. Civil Rights Bills 1 and 2. Voting Rights Act. The Food Stamp Act. Volunteers in Service to America. Model Cities. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Higher Education Act. Teacher Corps. National Endowment for the Arts. National Endowment for the Humanities. The Public Broadcasting Act. The Federal Transit Administration. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act. The Truth-in-Lending Act. The administration of Lyndon Johnson fundamentally changed America, largely for the better. Millions were lifted out of poverty -- just as LBJ had set out to do. Not every piece of legislation worked as intended, but most worked well enough. Most are still the law of the land.

This book tells the story of how that legislation came to be, pure and simple. Zeitz chronicles the legislative bargaining and pressuring, the administrative headaches, the triumph of government bureaucracy (it happens, occasionally), the noble goals and both the met and unmet expectations of The Great Society's programs.

Zietz doesn't get bogged down in Vietnam -- something that would have greatly benefitted his subject. "That bitch of a war," as Johnson famously described it, sucked the oxygen and the funding out of many of LBJ's landmark domestic programs. And, well, good for Zeitz. There are plenty of great books on the war in Vietnam, but very few books focused almost exclusively on The Great Society. The author stays in his lane and true to his mission.

It's the corollary to every discussion about the Johnson administration -- what more could he have accomplished if not for the war? Can Johnson really be considered a great president in spite of his atrocious handling of that conflict? Who can say? What we can say is that Johnson almost single-handedly stitched together a robust safety net for the country's most vulnerable citizens -- guaranteeing civil rights and desegregation, food and housing access, seat belts and public radio, and healthcare for both the aged and the poor.

To some, he introduced an invasive species of socialism into our famously individualistic democracy. To others, he didn't go nearly far enough in his effort to engineer social change. Controversial leaders, particularly those who sacrifice their own power and political capital in pursuit of a stretch goal, are often pilloried in this way -- taking fire from all sides. (My guess is that Martin Luther King, Jr., felt similarly.) Zeitz doesn't sugar-coat Johnson's failings, his crassness, his vanity, his maniacal management style or his occasional poor decision-making. He does argue -- effectively, I might add -- that LBJ changed America for the good and did so with the best of intentions. His relentless pursuit of legislative victories was less to suit his own substantial ego, but truly to benefit Americans who bore the weight of an unjust, unfair and unequal society.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.
LBJ




Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House by Joshua Zeitz is the story of LBJ’s grand plan for the United States.  Zeitz is the author of several books on American political and social history and has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Dissent, and American Heritage. Zeitz appeared as a commentator on two PBS documentaries – Boomer Century, and Ken Burns' Prohibition — and has commented on public policy matters on CNBC and CNN International. He has held faculty positions at Harvard, Cambridge, and Princeton and is the author of four books.

Today, Johnson is probably more associated with the Vietnam War than with his Great Society.  Zeitz looks at the president and his staff along with the Great Society and Civil Rights programs without making Vietnam the central point of the presidency.  The war does come into the book near the end, but the primary discussion is not the war. LBJ was a Texan and it showed in some very stereotypical ways.  He was gruff and used his power and favors owed to gain what he wanted.  He was not above intimidating his staff and opponents.  In one example while swimming with one of his senior staff, Johnson stopped at the right spot where his feet firmly touched the bottom of the pool but the shorter staff member needed to tread water while Johnson poked at the staffer’s chest and berated him.  Johnson always took a position of power.  He also enjoyed panicking guests by driving his (amphibious) car into the lake on his ranch while yelling that the brakes went out.  

Johnson could be a bully but he did have a soft spot.  He was a teacher in poor, primarily Mexican communities.  The racism and poverty had a deep effect on Johnson.  America was at its highest point of wealth and industry.  The vast richness of the United States should not be squandered.  All Americans should benefit.  Johnson spoke In a 1965 Speech at the signing of the Higher Education Act in San Marcos, TX:

I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.

Johnson worked on many programs that would seem out of place for his public image. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a project that evaded Kennedy.  Johnson used all his power and influence to push through the Act.  It became the starting point for his Great Society Program which became the 1964 campaign slogan.  Johnson believed that the Civil Rights Act had cost him and the Democrats the South. Johnson did, in fact, lose the Deep South (and Arizona) to Goldwater but carried the rest of the country.  He had a mandate for his Great Society.  The Voting Rights Act was pushed through despite resistance from southern leaders. He appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court and Robert C. Weaver became the first African-American to hold a cabinet position. Head Start, Food Stamps, National Endowment for the Arts and the Federal Work Study Program all saw their start under Johnson.   Medicare, Medicaid, and public broadcasting all saw growth under LBJ.  Johnson’s Great Society did not come easily. Congress became conscious of costs, especially with the growing spending on Vietnam, and racial issues in southern states.  In the north civil rights was support in word but not always deed.  People would pay lip service to civil rights but resist desegregation of schools.  Much like the words of  Shakespeare’s Mark Antony, Johnson too seemed to have experienced "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”  Vietnam overshadowed the good Johnson accomplished.  He felt the unfairness and once remarked:

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim.".

Zeitz gives the reader an inside look at the Johnson presidency.  His staff members and inner workings of the presidential policies are examined in detail.  Original source material and first-hand accounts as reference material make this book an excellent account of LBJ’s years as president.  Also, moving Vietnam to the backburner allows the read to see the “good” Johnson intended to accomplish with his presidency.  Personally, Johnson was far from perfect; professionally, too, he believed the ends sometimes justified the means.  An important work on the man who shaped modern liberal policy and improved the lives of many Americans.  

Available January 30, 2018

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the word 'poverty' was completely absent from the Congressional Record index and the Public Papers of the Presidents. LBJ's astonishing blitz of legislation in the 1960's changed America. As Joshua Zeitz's well-written and engaging work makes clear, LBJ's legacy has continued, sustained by Nixon and Carter, and surviving through to the Trump presidency.

Zeitz sees the legislative success of the periods as due to a complex mix of LBJ's hard-driving personality, social grassroots pressure, and the smarts of his advisers. Moyers, Goodwin, Valenti, Busby and Reedy have sometimes been overshadowed by the likes of McNamara, Rusk, and Kissinger who were more closely connected with Vietnam. Building The Great Society gives them their place in the limelight, while not understating the disagreements between largely older, more conservative staff and their more junior, idealistic counterparts. LBJ surrounded himself with intellectual talent wherever possible, relying on academic advisers and experts to a greater extent than JFK in his more lauded Camelot presidency.

The successes of the Great Society are clear, primarily in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act. Johnson did not merely craft laws, but pushed to make them a reality on the ground. Advisers were martialled to cajole and push recalcitrant counties and states to treat all Americans equally, with legislation giving the federal government the ability to investigate compliance and hold back finance if required. While the South bears the brunt of popular opprobrium over race relations, LBJ also had issues with recalcitrant northern areas, primarily the difficulties of undoing racism in housing and education.

The potential of the Great Society was hamstrung. Policies focused on developing opportunities, deliberately avoiding focusing on job creation or direct economic support under the false assumptions that economic growth was almost inevitable. Programs were watered down in order to pass through Congress, and the middle-class often benefitted from programs as much as those who were the real targets.

Public perception of LBJ's policies became a major issue when finance went to community organisers who were sometimes linked to far-left unrest and, at least indirectly, to urban unrest. The Office for Economic Opportunity never really defined whether 'maximum feasible participation' of the community in local programs meant was a genuine attempt at grassroots organisation or closer to tokenism. Zeitz shows that the issues with public perception were built in from the start of Johnson's presidency. HIs team allowed a popular image to develop that the Great Society was focused on urban, black Americans, ignoring the substantial numbers of rural, white Americans who benefitted. Massive public backing became even more difficult when LBJ spent the 1964 election campaign tarring Goldwater as an extremist rather than gaining genuine support for progressive change. Short-term electoral gain is not always the best objective.

Vietnam lurks behind The Great Society at every turn, despite Johnson's focus on domestic policy. He could not pull out of the war early for fear he would lose support for his domestic legislation. By the time he really wanted to pull out there was little way to spin disengagement as positive. Zeitz sees Johnson's decision not to run in 1968 as inevitable. LBJ could not credibly stand for the silent majority and navigate a careful course between war, helping urban areas and being tough on rioters. The foundations were in place and Nixon continued the broad Great Society approach, albeit sometimes for reasons of political expediency rather than from genuine liberal sentiments.

The greatness of Johnson was that he worked hard, pushed himself and his staff, and genuinely believed in creating a better society for all Americans. In an age of cynicism about politics, Johnson's sledgehammer commitment to changing lives is commendable. Times have changed. Presidents now are unlikely to have LBJ's popular backing and the large majorities of the 89th Congress. While JFK hedged his bets, LBJ took advantage of every opportunity to force through legislation using every tool open to him.

The legacy of the Great Society is open to debate. No politician today would criticise how LBJ changed the racial politics of the country but LBJ's other policies, most notably in education, missed the mark. As Johnson realised, the programs of teh Great Society were difficult to undo, leading to gradual increases in federal oversight and spending. LBJ took advantage of the opportunities open to him in a way few other presidents have, using every opportunity to wield power effectively. During the Democratic primaries for the 1968 election, Eugene McCarthy was once asked by Johnny Carson what type of president he would be and replied "I think I would be adequate". Love him or hate him, Johnson never settled for adequacy.

[Steven Meyers · Rating 5 out of 5]

President Johnson once said, “You might say that Lyndon Johnson is a cross between a Baptist preacher and a cowboy.” That he was. While I’ve patiently waited decades for the esteemed Robert Caro to finish his five-volume biography on our 36th president I have read a few smaller works about President Johnson. Mr. Zeitz’s ‘Building the Great Society’ is a wonderful fair assessment, especially if the reader has no desire to tackle Mr. Caro’s well over 3,000-page biography. President Johnson and his tenure are fascinating complex subjects. The book gives you many examples of how presidential administrations work in our post-World-War-II world. It also shows how our country’s can-do mindset formed after emerging as the most vibrant democracy from the detritus of Hitler’s and Stalin’s horrific foolishness.

Mr. Zeitz focuses on the key players in his administration who helped President Johnson implement the Great Society. No one person does it alone, but the president calls the plays and sifts through the various options. Love him or hate him, President Johnson was a political savant who got much of his plan implemented before Vietnam and racism took hold. He also knew how to choose effective administrators in the pursuit of a more just society. ‘Building the Great Society’ also describes the various internal clashes between staff members. Washington D.C. is a hotbed of power and egos. No organization in that town is immune from individuals’ selfish desires. It sometimes seems amazing to think anything gets done in a democracy. The book is broken down into three sections. The first part explains the major staff members in his administration who carried out his orders, the second part runs down through their accomplishments, and the third section shows how Vietnam and racist blowback brought the Great Society initiatives to a halt. President Johnson made bold moves and hoped the nation would follow. We did up to a point but then had our fill of inclusion. The author’s book remains focused on the administration and mostly ignores their interactions with Congress to pass the multitude of life-changing legislation. The president’s accomplishments in such a short period of time are truly breathtaking.

‘Building the Great Society’ gives President Johnson his due. It also shows how the uncouth complex man played the game to advance his objectives, in my humble opinion, better than most presidents. There is never a dull moment in Mr. Zeitz’s work. It was published in 2018 and its conclusion gives the reader a very brief perspective on President Foghorn Leghorn Trump’s Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight as compared to President Johnson’s group of experts. I found the author’s insight to be fascinating and a little comforting. ‘Building the Great Society’ is entertaining as hell and great history. Finishing the book left me with an afterglow and an urge to cuddle with my wife.

[Jakub Dovcik · Rating 5 out of 5]

As somebody who has read a number of LBJ biographies, including the not-too-short Caro ones, this book had a remarkable amount of both new information as well as perspectives on the inner workings of the Johnson White House. It does not deal too much with the President himself (as Caro, Dallek or Kearns Goodwin do), but rather with the staff around him - mostly about the better-known staffers like Valenti, Moyers, Jenkins, Reedy or Califano, but also lesser-known ones like Richard Goodwin, George Christian or Clark Clifford. It does not spend too much space on national security issues (well, it does not advertise that either)

It is remarkable how little structure was in the Johnson White House. Besides the most formal things, like the positions of Press Secretary, Counsel or Director of Legislative Affairs, most policy issues were somehow dispersed among the senior staffers. Similarly, LBJ did not have a formal Chief of Staff, which worked well until Jenkins was gone in mid-’64. Frankly, there was surely a lot of creative potential among the people LBJ picked (and his criteria were interesting in themselves, especially in contrast with Kennedys’ focus on ‘eastern establishment’ types), but it is hard to imagine a centre of government functioning in this was effectively in this day and age.

There were slower parts, mostly focused on explaining the general policy environment of the era, but generally, the book is quite entertaining, albeit definitely not Caro-esque. It will be very exciting for nerds who think about policy formulation and implementation, but it in a lot of its parts focuses more on the individual personalities and their infightings (especially in the latter parts of the LBJ administration) than on the structures that brought it about.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, providing an overview of the White House staff, underlying philosophy, and political methods behind LBJ’s package of legislation and executive actions for the Great Society. The author, academic and journalist Joshua Zeitz, gives a detailed political history of LBJ’s Presidency, with an emphasis on the social and economic improvement efforts. Zeitz concentrates on the behind the scenes stories for enacting the signature legislative efforts of the Great Society, to include Civil Rights, poverty reduction bills, and infrastructure investments. The book’s central characters are the bevy of senior White House aides and other key administration officials who enacted LBJ’s directives. Realizing his short window of opportunity, LBJ made it clear he was ready to burn down political capital to get his major objectives accomplished. Zeitz takes an objective view of that decision. He points out that the Great Society lacked the wide ranging philosophies and opportunities to experiment of the New Deal, but were built on a more solid political foundation that has preserved most of those programs through to the present day. A great book for understanding the political foundations of the civil rights, entitlement, education, and transportation programs which are still the baseline of our American system of equity. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to appreciate the political and philosophical battles which continue to influence campaigns and messaging in the present day.

[Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free Kindle copy of  Building the Great Society by Joshua Zeitz courtesy of Net Galley and Penguin Viking the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review to Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my nonfiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as I thave read a great deal about the Presidents of the United States. This is the second book by Joshua Zeitz that I have read (Lincoln's Boys).

This book is well written and an easy read. It covers LBJ's ascension to the Presidency, the development and implementation of "The Great Society" and its various programs (Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Medicare, Child Nutrition Programs, expansion of food stamps, etc.) and the downfall of his Presidency due to decisions revolving around the Vietnam War. It also covers his staff responsible for various parts of his goals - Bill Moyer, George Reedy, Joseph Califano and others.

The book is more enjoyable and interesting if you have not read a great deal about the Johnson Presidency. Other works provide greater depth and insights (Robert Caro's series comes to mind), but still is a good refresher of all of the good things that happened during his terms which are often overlooked due to Vietnam.

[David Corleto-Bales · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zeitz's book explains in some detail the intricacies of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the most ambitious attempt to restructure the government and aid society ever attempted since the New Deal. Johnson saw himself as the person to finish what Franklin Roosevelt started in the 1930s, and attracted some of the brightest minds in the country to help him do it. Great profiles of people like George Reedy, Bill Moyers, Joe Califano, Jack Valenti and others, (most of them Johnson men but some of them holdovers from the Kennedy years, like Larry O'Brien). LBJ sucked the life out of his staff, and although only being president for five years and two months it seemed much longer. John Kennedy said that "We do the hard things," and this continued in the Johnson Administration as LBJ tackled the problems of racial discord, poverty, environmental pollution, lack of access to education and others. As we know, the Vietnam War ultimately destroyed the Great Society, however, many of the programs live on in Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, public television and radio and Head Start. Johnson is a difficult president to fully quantify because when he was good, he was often great and when he was bad, (Vietnam) he was terrible. He's one of the presidents that should always, however, be remembered.

[Jethro Jacqiumo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to read this book on the sole reason that a "War on Poverty" would be virtually unheard of in today's political climate. That and the fact the work that I am doing is heavily involved in with people that are benefiting greatly from many of the programs that were started under the Roosevelt Administration and expanded during the Johnson administration, and even further expanded during the Nixon administration.

The author did a nice job of intertwining fun facts with actual information (I apologize if those seem interchangeable, but bare with me). So much so that at one point I found myself thoroughly intrigued when reading about the changes Lady Bird made to the White House fengshui.

I had a lot of respect for the book and the author, due to the fact that it seemed as neutral as you could get when writing a political book. Up until the conclusion when the author seemed to chime in on our current political climate which I did not care to much for. I didn't want to buy this book to read about the potential failures that the Trump administration could impose (at the time the book was finished Trump most likely had not taken office yet.)

[Roger Smitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers who like political histories will like this book. Those of us who became came of age in the 1960’s will remember AND learn something about our coming of age. Author Zeitz starts us with the events of November 22, 1963. The focus quickly changes into an analysis of how LBJ changed the White House and the country.

There’s plenty in the book about the policies that LBJ launched. There were good ones—especially the opening of schools to minority students, the cash for students (like me) used to go to college. That program helped me finish college.

But the power of the book is Zeitz’s ability to describe in detail who LBJ used staff members to shape his presidency and the policies. Of course the Vietnam War consistently shows up to to remind us the dark side of LBJ and his staff. In the final pages, Zeitz gives us a few predictions about Trump’s team.

Readers who like history will like this book. Those who like 20th century history will enjoy it very much.

On a personal note, the influence of my dissertation advisor caused me to pick up the book. Jack was a Texan who loved politics. He would have fully enjoyed this book.

[Robert S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Building the Great Society comes at an opportune time as this year (2018) marks the 50th anniversary of LBJ's fall from the Presidency, one that rose to the greatest of heights with work including the "Great Society" before being marred by the Vietnam War.

Joshua Zeitz has the unfortunate reality of living in the shadow of LBJ Biographer Robert Caro, like all individuals who decide to tackle one of the most fascinating Presidents to ever hold the highest office in the land.

The book is not as thorough or comprehensive as any Caro books but it doesn't need to be. Instead, it focuses on the individuals surrounding LBJ, the men who helped him implement the "Great Society". The book provides mini biographies of those individuals.

My biggest fault with the book is that I would have enjoyed more information about the working relationships between people in the LBJ White House. I would have also enjoyed more information about how these individuals helped get legislation like Head Start passed or other important pieces of "Great Society" legislation.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many people only remember LBJ as the President who continually deceived the nation about the ever-mounting human and financial cost of the Viet Nam War. But, as Zeitz reminds us in his engrossing history, in his first two years as President, LBJ accomplished the most extensive transformation of American society since FDR's New Deal. LBJ's "Great Society" gave America the Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, public television, ESEA, and other social programs that profoundly changed the role of the federal government and the everyday life of millions of Americans. But, LBJ's triumphs were not to last. By 1968, the quagmire of Viet Nam, urban riots, campus unrest and rising crime and inflation shoved LBJ off the national stage to make room for the likes of Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon and George Wallace. I'm sure that many of us remember how that turned out.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one caught my eye because I hadn't read anything flat out about any part of Johnson's time as President on purpose. He was discussed in books about other events or people from that era. I figured it was time I read about him on purpose. This focused pretty specifically on his Great Society plan, how he was able to push things through, his staff, and how things ended up working, particularly as Vietnam continued. There was so much than Johnson pushed through that I had no idea came from his administration. This wasn't a side of his time in office I had learned much about before. The book itself didn't sugar coat anything and I found the whole thing interesting, and it kept my attention the whole time.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

LBJ is our most underrated president, one of the best (if not the best) domestic president. He's also a fascinating character, as Robert Caro has so perfectly shown. This book is just whets my appetite for the next chapter in the Caro series. When I last left Johnson, he had just become president, but that was pretty much it (minus a great part on the Civil Rights Act). There was little discussion of the big items (Great Society, Vietnam) and little discussion of the various figures of the Johnson presidency (Moynihan, Fortas, Shriver). This book is not at Caro's level but just reiterates how close Johnson came and the political actions and reactions that surrounded the War on Poverty and the effect of Vietnam.

[Dan Tadmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25
This is a great book about LBJ's white house and the transformation of social, economic, and foreign policy throughout the 60's. Given Johnson is first and foremost a master politician, I found it to be incredibly fulfilling to not just read about the scope and impact of the Great Society, but to understand the political elements that motivated and derailed his ultimate ambition.

Much can be said about the 'what could have been' had it not been for Vietnam sized wrench in LBJ's agenda, but there is an incredibly learning opportunity in exploring the nakedness of policy when the research and proposals face the reality of life.

This is a refreshing appetiser in between my 5 course Robert Caro meal, now I am just waiting for dessert. Bon appetit.

[Caitie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Lyndon Johnson tried to do during his presidency is still relevant today. Many of his Great Society programs are still in operation, such as Head Start (preschool for kids who are poor and/or in poverty) and Medicare (health care for elderly people). I say this book is still relevant because politicians still make the same (or very similar) arguments about why the United States shouldn't have national health insurance. That argument, which I find to be wrong, is that if everyone had health care that we would become a "socialized nation." Anyway, what President Johnson managed to do, with the help of Congress--I know, imagine that!--is nothing short of amazing.

[Hasan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read that goes over the various Great Society programs that Lyndon Johnson worked to put into place throughout his presidency and how Vietnam became his biggest hurdle and eventually his kryptonite with the American people. If you've read any of the Robert Caro books on LBJ, this isn't that. Caro goes into excruciating and amazing detail about each of the important parts of LBJ's life. This book focuses on the Great Society and goes into detail great behind the purpose of some of its more prominent programs. It largely stays away from LBJ's legislative wizardry to get these proposals through the Congress.