Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House

The author of Lincoln's Boys takes us inside the LBJ White House to show how the legendary Great Society programs were actually enactedamp;mdash;the very programs that defined modern America, and are now under seige. What it took to make them work, and what we'll lose if they are dismantled.

LBJ 's towering political skills and his ambitious slate of liberal legislation are famous: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Headstart, Medicaid, etc. 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 that 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; created 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, and Harry McPherson were men as pragmatic and ambitious as Johnson, skilled in the art of throwing a sharp elbow or building infrastructure. Upward to the Great Society is the story of how one of the most competent White House staffs in American history fundamentally changed everyday life for millions of Americans and forged a legacy of compassionate and interventionist government.