The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson named his domestic program for civil rights and reform—in the areas of voting, housing, health care, and education—the "Great Society"; Zelizer (history and public affairs, Princeton Univ.) refers to it as our second New Deal. At the same time, the author argues that a shift in the mood of Congress offered a temporary opening for this epic run of lawmaking. By early 1965, with Congress reverted to its more usual position, it was all over. While Johnson had the political skill to take advantage of this brief window, Zelizer argues that our view of the Great Society is too "Johnson-centric" and the role of Congress is underplayed. He challenges implicitly our view as being too "Caro-centric" as well, since the latest volume in Robert Caro's Johnson biography, The Passage of Power (2012), is the historical script for most readers today. Zelizer, a regular commentator on CNN and elsewhere, is also an accomplished political historian, with books such as Governing America.