Randall B. Woods has written a remarkably comprehensive and insightful biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, one that compares favorably with Robert Dallek's five-volume biography of Johnson. Woods, a Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas and a past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, is respected for his scholarship, especially his lengthy study of the career of Senator J. William Fulbright. LBJ: Architect of American Ambition is based on extensive research in Johnson's papers and other relevant primary sources as well as the large body of secondary material on the subject.
Woods is at his best in examining the complex and tormented Johnson, a man whose ambition, vision, and political acumen were undermined by insecurity, pettiness, and intellectual limitations. In his pursuit of power, Johnson played many roles—Johnson the Humble, Johnson the Warrior, Johnson the Crusader, Johnson the Magnanimous, Johnson the Vindictive, among others—and...