Description

In politics the man who takes the highest spot after a landslide is not standing on solid ground

In this riveting work of narrative nonfiction Jonathan Darman tells the story of two giants of American politics Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan and shows how from 1963 to 1966 these two menthe same age and driven by the same heroic ambitionschanged American politics forever

The liberal and the conservative The dealmaking arm twister and the cool communicator The Texas rancher and the Hollywood star Opposites in politics and style Johnson and Reagan shared a defining impulse to set forth a grand story of America a story in which he could be the hero In the tumultuous days after the Kennedy assassination Johnson and Reagan each in turn seized the chance to offer the country a new vision for the future Bringing to life their vivid personalities and the anxious mood of America in a radically transformative time Darman shows how in promising the impossible Johnson and Reagan jointly dismantled the long American tradition of consensus politics and ushered in a new era of fracture History comes to life in Darmans vivid flyonthe wall storytelling

Even as Johnson publicly revels in his triumphs we see him grow obsessed with dark forces he believes are out to destroy him while his wife Lady Bird urges her husband to put aside his paranoia and see the world as it really is And as the war in Vietnam threatens to overtake his presidency we witness Johnson desperately struggling to compensate with ever more extravagant promises for his Great Society

On the other side of the country Ronald Reagan a fading actor years removed from his Hollywood glory gradually turns toward a new career in California politics We watch him delivering speeches to crowds who are desperate for a new leader And we see him wielding his wellhoned instinct for timing waiting for Johnsons majestic promises to prove empty before he steps back into the spotlight on his long journey toward the presidency

From Johnsons election in 1964 the greatest popularvote landslide in American history to the pivotal 1966 midterms when Reagan burst forth onto the national stage Landslide brings alive a country transformedby riots protests the rise of television the shattering of consensusand the two towering personalities whose choices in those moments would reverberate through the country for decades to come

Praise for Landslide

Richly detailed Landslide is a vivid retelling of a tumultuous three years in American history and Mr Darman captures in full the personalities and motives of two of the twentieth centurys most consequential politiciansThe New York Times

Novel and even surprising Landslide deftly reminds readers that Johnson and Reagan both trafficked in grandiose oratory and promoted utopian visions at odds with the social complexity of modern AmericaThe Washington Post

Riveting Darman portrays Johnson and Reagan as polar opposites of political attraction Animated by the artful insight that they were men of disappointment headed toward an appointment with history A tale about myths and a nation that believed them about a world of a half century ago now gone foreverThe Boston Globe

Alert to the subtleties of politics and political history Darman a former correspondent for Newsweek nimbly explores delusion and selfdelusion at the highest levelsThe New York Times Book Review