A DAY IN THE LIFE OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON by Jim Bishop. 274 pages. Random House. $5.95.
Detail can be a useful device in reconstructing history, particularly when it is used to correct the astigmatism of adulation that most contemporary historians bring to bear on their subjects. George Washington's ivory false teeth; Gladstone's predilection for reforming London streetwalkers; Lenin's fondness for a Franco-Russian woman during his pre-Revolution exile in Paris: all these trivial addenda lend a sense of humanity to the men who made history and help relate them to the banality of history as it is lived. Yet Jim Bishop, chrome-plated chronicler...
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