Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson

by Irving Bernstein

Book Overview

The presidency of Lyndon Johnson was a pivotal moment in twentieth-century American history. From the decisive social programs of the Great Society, to the triumph of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, to the catastrophe of the Vietnam War and domestic unrest, it was an era of dramatic accomplishment and wrenching tragedy. In Guns or Butter, renowned historian Irving Bernstein brings those five climactic years of the sixties vividly to life, from the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195063120
• ISBN13: 9780195063127
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 656 Pages
• Weight: 2.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Balanced Look at the Presidency of LBJ

While considering this book I found a book review by American Studies Today Online, so I have posted it at the bottom of this review. I thought it was appropriate."Book Review: Guns or Butter: the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson by Irving Bernstein."Warfare, rioting, assassinations: mayhem continues to be the dominant image of America in the mid-1960s, with Lyndon Johnson presiding. This book is intended to redress an 'unfair balance' in the treatment of the man and his time in office, which has skewed our perception almost exclusively to what went wrong. "The tragedy of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, according to the author of this new political biography, was that Johnson believed that he could have both guns and butter - that his vision of the United States as a 'great society' could be fulfilled alongside the waging of war in southeast Asia. It was to be a tragedy of epic proportions. "In the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, and especially after the Democrats' landslide victory in the presidential election a year later, Johnson set about the task of continuing and extending his predecessor's liberal reform programme. Legislative achievements included the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and a series of progressive measures relating to immigration, education and conservation. Together they constituted a new 'New Deal': FDR was LBJ's political hero. "With rapid economic growth in the mid-1960s, the Democrats could have looked forward to a lengthy stay in office during which Johnson's vision of the 'great society' might have been made still more a reality. But his decision to engage US military forces in the long-running conflict in Vietnam changed everything. "Bernstein has produced a very readable narrative of the domestic triumphs and foreign travails of the Johnson administration, richly documented from the archives of the LBJ presidential library in Austin, Texas. His book gives fascinating insights into the American political process, and into Johnson's complex personality. "Despite the author' s hope to rehabilitate LBJ's reputation by focussing on the domestic accomplishments, it is the descent into the quagmire of Vietnam that comes to dominate his account. The style of writing is often vivid, sometimes colloquial, always lucid. There are useful historical backgrounds given to all the issues under discussion, and brief biographical sketches of the principal policy-makers in the Johnson administration. The book is generously illustrated, and is a storehouse of material from which teachers and students can draw readily for a better understanding of those dramatic years of American hope and despair, dream and nightmare, over which LBJ presided." American Studies Today Online

A overdue look at what went right with LBJ's presidency.

I've read this book twice and each time my admiration grows. Bernstein has written a book that accurately assesses what went right with Johnson's presidency. Johnson, on domestic policy, rivaled FDR in brilliance. Although Bernstein's goal is to show us the "forgotten" LBJ, he doesn't shrink from showing us how badly he failed when it came to the Vietnam War. This book contained lots of information but it never got bogged down in the details.