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Cover image for Building the Great Society : inside Lyndon Johnson's White House
Building the Great Society : inside Lyndon Johnson's White House
Title:
Building the Great Society : inside Lyndon Johnson's White House
ISBN:
9780525428787
Physical Description:
xviii, 378 pages ; 24 cm
Contents:
Put the ball through the hoop -- Participation in prosperity -- Second day -- Revolutionary activity -- Frontlash -- A frustrating paradox -- Completing the Fair Deal -- Get 'em! Get the last ones! -- The fabulous Eighty-ninth -- Guns and butter -- Backlash -- You aren't a man in your own right -- The thirty-first of March -- Conclusion.
Summary:
LBJ's towering political skills and his ambitious slate of liberal legislation are the stuff of legend: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, and environmental reform. But what happened after the bills passed? One man could not and did not go it alone. Joshua Zeitz reanimates the creative and contentious atmosphere inside Johnson's White House as a talented and energetic group of advisers made LBJ's vision a reality. They desegregated public and private institutions throughout one third of the United States; built Medicare and Medicaid from the ground up in one year; launched federal funding for public education; provided food support for millions of poor children and adults; and launched public television and radio, all in the space of five years, even as Vietnam strained the administration's credibility and budget. Bill Moyers, Jack Valenti, Joe Califano, Harry McPherson and the other staff members who comprised LBJ's inner circle were men as pragmatic and ambitious as Johnson, equally skilled in the art of accumulating power or throwing a sharp elbow. Building the Great Society is the story of how one of the most competent White House staffs in American history - serving one of the most complicated presidents ever to occupy the Oval Office - fundamentally changed everyday life for millions of citizens and forged a legacy of compassionate and interventionist government.
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