Robert A. Caro
The Path to Power · Means of Ascent · Master of the Senate · The Passage of Power
This is perhaps the best historical biography I’ve ever read. Four books so far, with a fifth on the way, it is not only meticulously researched, but is deliciously and superbly well-written. The first book, The Path to Power, opens with a long consideration of West Texas topography — a topic in which I had previously found no interest — but does so so brilliantly that I found myself enraptured by the pages. Robert Caro can *write*. The third book, Master of the Senate, is a stunning telling of LBJ’s use of political power to Get Things Done in the Senate. The entire series is an amazing study of the nature of power (“Power, Lord Acton says, corrupts. Not always. What power always does is reveal.”) and an intimate portrait of LBJ.