History: A Texas-Size L.B.J. Obsession

Robert Caro, 14 years into his biography, traces a web of deceit

Lyndon Baines Johnson may have been larger than life, but since his death 16 years ago, he has been getting bigger. The growth spurt is due largely to the diligence of Robert A. Caro, the biographer and political historian who has made L.B.J.'s saga into an obsession and virtually a life's work. Caro is one of the best known of a small breed of long-distance writers who appear from their orbits of research to offer big books on big subjects. Among others in the select group, most of whom tend to be, like Caro, journalist-scholars: Richard Kluger, author of the civil...

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