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Building the Great Society

Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
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 practice: 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 Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 and Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

LBJ's towering political skills and his ambitious slate of liberal legislation are the stuff of legend: 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.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Dan Woren provides a clear, authoritative tone in his performance of Zeitz's meticulous audiobook on the political maneuverings of the Johnson presidency. Listeners expecting a sweeping overview of LBJ's life and career should note that this work focuses on Johnson's efforts to build coalitions to enact the programs that comprised the sweeping policy changes of the 1960s, including the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and the War on Poverty. Zeitz's work is both concise and exhaustive. This is not hagiography; Johnson's confrontational, provocative personality is on display throughout. Often the narrative includes the work of staff close to the president, including Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers. Woren's performance handles all the challenging moments with the right level of respect. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 15, 2018
      In this probing study of domestic policy in the Johnson Administration, historian and journalist Zeitz (Lincoln’s Boys). argues that battles over civil rights and anti-poverty measures were as fierce as those over the Vietnam War. Zeitz examines the crafting and implementation of L.B.J.’s Great Society agenda: the landmark Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, which together profoundly changed American life and the role of government; food stamps, Head Start, and federal school-aid measures; and the controversial “community action” programs that funded citizens’ groups as they organized, protested, and sued local governments, which felt to beleaguered Democratic mayors like a war on them rather than a War on Poverty. Zeitz’s lively narrative foregrounds the personalities and power plays of Johnson’s White House staff—genteel press secretary Bill Moyers emerges as both a liberal idealist and a “ruthless” bureaucratic operator—under the tyrannical L.B.J., infamous for his castration taunts and compulsory nude pool parties. Zeitz also explores the sociology motivating the policy-makers; they were convinced that the poor could be better helped by social and cultural opportunity and integration than by redistributing money, a conviction that eventually foundered on economic slowdown and white backlash. Zeitz’s lucid account yields engrossing insights into one of America’s most hopeful, productive, and tragic political eras. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

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