Why read The Fierce Urgency of Now?

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

Book description

A majestic big-picture account of the Great Society and the forces that shaped it, from Lyndon Johnson and members of Congress to the civil rights movement and the media

Between November 1963, when he became president, and November 1966, when his party was routed in the midterm elections, Lyndon Johnson…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Fierce Urgency of Now as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Timothy N. Thurber

Author

Presidents matter, but they do not have magical powers.

Zelizer persuasively recounts how the Great Society reforms of the 1960s would not have been passed without the work of legislators whose names are largely forgotten today. Democrats achieved many of their goals, but Zelizer also surveys how they faced stern resistance from Republicans on Capitol Hill. A window of opportunity to transform the nation opened in the mid-1960s, and then soon closed.

From Timothy's list on The best books about Republicans and Democrats in the 1960s.