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What it argues
Master of the Senate is the third volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson and covers his years as a senator from 1949 through 1958, culminating in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. At over 1,000 pages, it is both a biography of Johnson and a history of the United States Senate as an institution — Caro opens with a hundred-page account of the Senate's evolution from the Constitutional Convention through the mid-twentieth century that is among the finest institutional histories in American biographical writing.
The book's central argument is that Johnson transformed the Senate's power structure in a way that had no precedent and has had no true successor. When Johnson arrived as a freshman senator in 1949, the Senate was dominated by a group of conservative Southern Democrats who used committee seniority and the filibuster to control the chamber's agenda. Within five years, Johnson had become Senate Majority Leader and had created a system of personal intelligence-gathering, vote-trading, and individual pressure that allowed him to move legislation in ways the institution had not previously seen.
What it gets right
- 1.
Johnson transformed the Senate majority leadership from a largely ceremonial post into an instrument of genuine legislative power through his personal intelligence network and vote-management system.
- 2.
The Senate that Johnson entered in 1949 was controlled by Southern conservatives who used committee seniority and the filibuster as a blocking mechanism. Understanding that structure is essential to understanding his strategy.
- 3.
"The Treatment" — Johnson's technique of one-on-one persuasion calibrated to each senator's specific vulnerabilities and interests — was documented by dozens of participants and constitutes one of the most detailed accounts of political persuasion in American history.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Robert A. Caro is an American journalist and biographer who has devoted most of his career to two monumental biographical projects. The Power Broker, his study of New York planner Robert Moses, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, now in four volumes with a fifth projected, has won the Pulitzer Prize (for Master of the Senate, 2003), multiple National Book Critics Circle Awards, and a National Book Award. Each volume has required years of exhaustive research, including hundreds of interviews and extended archival work. Caro's 2012 memoir Working describes his research methods.
