Sam Rayburn: A biography

by Alfred Steinberg

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Unbound
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801552109
• ISBN13: 9780801552106
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Hawthorn Books
• Length: 391 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Interesting and adequate

I know there are newer biographies of Sam Rayburn, who served as Speaker of the House from 1941 till 1947 and from 1949 till 1953 and from 1955 till he died on Nov. 16, 1961, which I have not read. He was an interesting and great man, and this biography tells his life story withunderstanding if not with too much verve. What saves the book is that it is so filled with interesting facts, some of which were new to me. Lyndon Johnson was a big buddy of Rayburn's, as Caro's Master of the Senate makes clear, but the more or less incidental account of Johnson's achievement in getting the 1957 Civil Rights Bill thru the Senate, which is hailed and studied in such detail in Caro's book, is given an entirely different slant in this work, much less flattering to Johnson than is the account in Master of the Senate. This book is adequately footnoted, and the sources are often indicative of the work that the author went to to get the book right, and there is a good bibliography. I had a good feeling when I finished this book that it does Sam Rayburn justice.