Four volumes, four decades of work, one argument: power reveals. Caro tracks Johnson from the Texas Hill Country to the Senate to the presidency, and the portrait that emerges is of a man who was both the most effective legislator of the twentieth century and one of its most ruthless operators. The Path to Power, Means of Ascent, Master of the Senate, The Passage of Power. Each volume stands alone; together they're the definitive study of how American political power actually works.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.