Lyndon B. Johnson: The American Presidents Series: The 36th President, 1963-1969

“This book is a rare gem of cogency and insight by one of America’s most original thinkers on politics and government. In one slender volume, Charles Peters captures every relevant part of LBJ’s life, breaks important new ground with fresh reporting, and offers peerless historical context. It’s hard to believe for a book so short, but this is the finest one-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson yet written.” —Jonathan Alter, author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

“Tired of waiting for Robert Caro to wrap up his mammoth, multivolume biography of Lyndon Johnson? If so, Charles Peters’s sleek little number on the 36th president may ease your restlessness. Peters knows this material both as an insider . . . and as a longtime observer.” —The Washington Post Book World

“A trim, astute portrait… Peters shrewdly assesses Johnson’s legislative tactics and political manipulations, his idealism and staggering energies, his crudeness and cruelties.” —The Atlantic

“The latest in the well-received American Presidents Series . . . Peters offers a nuanced portrait of Johnson’s shocking ascension to the presidency in the wake of JFK’s assassination–and explains how both LBJ aides and Kennedy aides became more spiteful and suspicious of one another.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“This slim volume . . . will remind members of that generation what a fascinating figure Johnson was in his day and the extent to which his policies helped shape today’s United States.” —Dallas Morning News

“Charles Peters, who actually worked in the Johnson administration, insightfully and accessibly explores both Johnson the man and his political contradictions. . . . [An] outstanding biography.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[A] slim yet perceptive biography. . . . Mr. Peters, a veteran political operative who worked for President Kennedy, and founded the Washington Monthly, is admirably qualified to tell the story of Johnson and he does so with a measure of balance that most chroniclers of the Texan rarely achieve.” —The Washington Times