Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight (Paperback)

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Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight By Julia Sweig Cover Image

Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight (Paperback)

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A revelation . . . a book in the Caro mold, using Lady Bird, along with tapes and transcripts of her entire White House diary, to tell the history of America during the Johnson years.”—The New York Times

The inspiration for the documentary film The Lady Bird Diaries, premiering November 13 on Hulu

Perhaps the most underestimated First Lady of the twentieth century, Lady Bird Johnson was also one of the most powerful. In Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, Julia Sweig reveals how indispensable the First Lady was to Lyndon Johnson’s administration—which Lady Bird called “our” presidency. In addition to advising him through critical moments, she took on her own policy initiatives, including the most ambitious national environmental effort since Theodore Roosevelt and a virtually unknown initiative to desegregate access to public recreation and national parks in Washington, D.C.
 
Where no presidential biographer has understood Lady Bird’s full impact, Julia Sweig is the first to draw substantially on her White House diaries and to place her center stage. In doing so, Sweig reveals a woman ahead of her time—and an accomplished strategist and politician in her own right.
 
Winner of the Texas Book Award • Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bogard Weld Award
Julia Sweig is an award-winning author of books on Cuba, Latin America, and American foreign policy. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, the Nation, the National Interest, and in Brazil's Folha de São Paulo, among other outlets. Her book Inside the Cuban Revolution won the American Historical Association's 2003 Herbert Feis Award. She served as senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations for fifteen years and concurrently led the Aspen Institute's congressional seminar on Latin America for ten years. She holds a doctorate and master's degree from the Johns Hopkins University. She is a non-resident senior research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin and lives with her family outside of Washington, D.C.
Product Details ISBN: 9780812985849
ISBN-10: 0812985842
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Publication Date: March 22nd, 2022
Pages: 560
Language: English
“A revelation . . . a book in the Caro mold, using Lady Bird, along with tapes and transcripts of her entire White House diary, to tell the history of America during the Johnson years.”The New York Times

“Sweig makes a persuasive case for Lady Bird’s influence not just within her marriage but on her husband’s career. In doing so, she forces us to adjust the lens through which we’ve viewed one of our most consequential presidencies.”The Washington Post

“A superb portrait that elevates Lady Bird’s stature as one of the most accomplished first ladies of the twentieth century.”Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“With impressive research and admirable skill as a superb storyteller, Sweig’s book for the first time captures the full extent of Lady Bird’s influence on LBJ’s administration and her importance in making the Great Society a landmark moment in American history. Hers is the best book written about Lady Bird Johnson and also a model for how we should understand the influence of First Ladies on the country’s turn toward a more humane society.”—Robert Dallek, author of How Did We Get Here?: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump

“Sweig has given us a fascinating portrait of a marriage—and of a shrewd, tough, tender, and wise woman who understood the uses and limits of power. Her biography of Lady Bird Johnson is a magisterial, revealing, and rewarding work.”—Evan Thomas, author of First: Sandra Day O’Connor

“This is the best book ever written about one of the most influential—and least understood—First Ladies in history. In Julia Sweig’s beautifully rendered, intimate portrait, one can finally take the full measure of Lady Bird Johnson as environmentalist, feminist, and shrewd political strategist on whom her husband always depended but should have heeded more.”—Michael Kazin, Georgetown University, co-author of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s

“Julia Sweig has gifted us with a most timely and splendidly enhanced portrait of Lady Bird Johnson: daughter of Alabama and Texas wealth—historian, journalist, activist, speechwriter, campaigner, successful businesswoman. Lady Bird championed the New South and was partner to LBJ’s efforts regarding civil rights, human rights, and the Great Society. We learn about Lady Bird’s previously unknown work for real environmental change, which extended far beyond ‘beautification’ and floral plantings—with profound visions for a Green New Deal. This riveting portrait gives us an important revision of a long-neglected First Lady.”—Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt, Vols. 1–3

“Sweig has written an inviting, challenging, well-told tale of the thoroughly modern partner and strategist Lady Bird Johnson, whose skill and complexity emerge fully in this rich tale of history and humanity.”—John Dickerson, author of The Hardest Job in the World