Format:
1 online resource (604 pages)
ISBN:
9780199874316
Content:
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 moment Lee Harvey Oswald aimed a rifle from the window of the Texas School Depository to the tense ballot-counting that put Richard Nixon in the White House in 1968. Bernstein's book is a narrative masterpiece, filled with sharply drawn character sketches and swiftly moving accounts of events that range from deals cut in the Senate cloakroom, to police charging after protesters on the streets of Selma, to Vietcong commandos bursting into the American embassy in Saigon. We see Johnson ordering aides Bill Moyers and Richard Goodwin to strip and join him for a skinny-dip in the White House pool, where they formulate the Great Society. And we see a tired, distracted president pacing in his bathrobe around a table model of the besieged Khe Sanh garrison, examining aerial photographs and casualty reports. Equally important, Bernstein offers a deft assessment of Johnson's successes and failures, from his legislative programs to his futile pursuit of the war in Vietnam to his failure to boost Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign in 1968. The author not only retells the maneuvering that brought the president's plans into law, he also analyzes and explains their impact, from the Voting Rights Act to Medicare. The Great Society, Bernstein concludes, was a triumph, but Johnson's attempt to have both guns and butter, to pursue massive domestic initiatives together with a bitter undeclared war, led to runaway
Content:
Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Preface -- Contents -- Prologue: The Vice Presidency -- I Caretaker Of John F. Kennedy's Legacy -- 1. Fifteen Days -- 2. The Tax Cut -- 3. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- 4. The War on Poverty -- II Lyndon Johnson-"The Great, Fabulous 89th Congress" -- 5. Prelude: The 1964 Election -- 6. Medicare: The Jewel in the Crown -- 7. Breakthrough in Education -- 8. Selma and the Voting Rights Act -- 9. Immigration: Righting the National Origins Wrong -- 10. The Environment: From Conservation to Pollution -- 11. Failure: The Repeal of Right-to- Work -- III Lyndon Johnson-Embattled, Besieged, Undermined -- 12. Unhinging the State of the Union -- 13. Vietnam: Sliding into the Quagmire -- 14. Launching the Great Inflation -- 15. Turmoil at Home -- 16. Updating the Minimum Wage and Social Security -- 17. Lyndon Johnson, Patron of the Arts -- 18. Model Cities -- 19. The Collapse of the Johnson Presidency -- IV Coda -- 20. Guns or Butter -- Notes -- Index.
Note:
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9780195063127
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe ISBN 9780195063127
Language:
English
URL:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kxp/detail.action?docID=716668
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