I bought this book at a used book sale on Constitution Ave., NW, in Washington DC many years ago and was enthralled with it. Here is a book that gives a reader access into former President Lyndon Johnson as he was, mainly during his Presidency and shortly after his return to Texas for the last time. Doris Kearns Goodwin first met Johnson when she came to the White House in 1967 to serve an internship from Harvard. And after Johnson left the White House in January 1969, she also worked with him on his presidential papers. All in all, it was a very rewarding experience to read this book, which I recommend highly

I just started this last night and I'm enjoying it so far.. I like the writing styles of our authors. It definitely doesn't read like a history book. 

Sheds a lot of light on its chosen historical period, and there's a lot there to see. The journalism taking place, especially, was truly fascinating. In fact my biggest complaint with the book might be that she sort of drops the journalism thread following the McClure's shake-up. She does touch base with those characters sporadically throughout the rest of the book, but not with the care and diligence that she employed before. In a sense it's a shame that Goodwin is a presidential historian, because I would have loved for this book to be centered on Ida Tarbell herself.

In any case, it's a beautifully written book; always compelling and informative, as I've come to expect from the author. I have a richer understanding of American history for it, and certainly a clearer understanding of Roosevelt & Taft. Highly recommended

Sheds a lot of light on its chosen historical period, and there's a lot there to see. The journalism taking place, especially, was truly fascinating. In fact my biggest complaint with the book might be that she sort of drops the journalism thread following the McClure's shake-up. She does touch base with those characters sporadically throughout the rest of the book, but not with the care and diligence that she employed before. In a sense it's a shame that Goodwin is a presidential historian, because I would have loved for this book to be centered on Ida Tarbell herself.

In any case, it's a beautifully written book; always compelling and informative, as I've come to expect from the author. I have a richer understanding of American history for it, and certainly a clearer understanding of Roosevelt & Taft. Highly recommended.

Abraham Lincoln had always seemed to me, an outsider flattening my nose against the fishbowl of American history, generally a big deal. In his story's oversimplified version, he kept his country together, freed slaves, and was all but deified upon his assassination. The man was, even if everyone else at the time didn't know it, "still too near to his greatness" as they were, "[h]is genius... still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us," as Leo Tolstoy put it, a veritable badass. Pitting him against vampires was redundant. The broad strokes of his life were already very well-known to me, burned into the public consciousness as they have been by more books, biopics, and occasional pop-culture references combined than any one person save Doris Kearns Goodwin with her superpowers of research and organization can know what to do with. Most people are usually content enough not to investigate any further.