The author of Lincoln's Boys takes us inside the LBJ White House to show how the legendary Great Society programs were actually enacted--the very programs that defined modern America, and are now under seige. What it took to make them work, and what we'll lose if they are dismantled.
LBJ 's towering political skills and his ambitious slate of liberal legislation are famous: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Headstart, Medicaid, etc. 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 that 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; created 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, and Harry McPherson were men as pragmatic and ambitious as Johnson, skilled in the art of throwing a sharp elbow or building infrastructure. Upward to the Great Society is the story of how one of the most competent White House staffs in American history fundamentally changed everyday life for millions of Americans and forged a legacy of compassionate and interventionist government.
A timely and intimate look into Abraham Lincoln's White House through the lives of his two closest aides and confidants
Lincoln's official secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president's immediate family. Hay and Nicolay were the gatekeepers of the Lincoln legacy. They read poetry and attended the theater with the president, commiserated with him over Union army setbacks, and plotted electoral strategy. They were present at every seminal event, from the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to Lincoln's delivery of the Gettysburg Address-and they wrote about it after his death.
In their biography of Lincoln, Hay and Nicolay fought to establish Lincoln's heroic legacy and to preserve a narrative that saw slavery-not states' rights-as the sole cause of the Civil War. As Joshua Zeitz shows, the image of a humble man with uncommon intellect who rose from obscurity to become a storied wartime leader and emancipator is very much their creation.
Drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs, Lincoln's Boys is part political drama and part coming-of-age tale-a fascinating story of friendship, politics, war, and the contest over history and remembrance.
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