Book Review: LBJ and Modern America by Kevin Fernlund

Introduction: Fernlund's Framing of the Age of Johnson

Kevin Fernlund opens his biography of Lyndon B. Johnson by defining the years 1932 to 1968 as the "Age of Johnson"¹ — a designation not commonly applied to a time period stretching from the New Deal era to the height of the Cold War. From the outset, it becomes clear that Fernlund's purpose is not to rehash old material or repeat well-worn facts about LBJ, but rather to depict the man in a new light — as a figure larger than life — so that one cannot consider this era without thinking about how it reflected on him and he on it. This review examines Fernlund's aims, how well he executes his purpose, whether his treatment of the subject is too narrow, too broad, or appropriately detailed, how well the book is organized, and the qualities of the author's focus.

Thesis and Purpose: A New Portrait of LBJ

The main purpose of Fernlund's biography is to present Johnson in a fresh and compelling light. The first point Fernlund wishes to make is that LBJ became the man he was because he came from Texas.² The region had such a profound impact on his worldview that without Texas, Johnson would not have been Johnson. He was a product of the Lone Star State more than anything else.

By emphasizing place, Fernlund attempts to fill a gap in the way history has chosen to remember the 36th president. LBJ is so often associated with two things — the assassination of Kennedy and the Vietnam War — or, if one wishes to be concise, with the Cold War. In either case, these associations belong to the world of high-stakes politics. What Fernlund does is take the reader out of that world of espionage and political maneuvering and drop him squarely into the domestic sphere of rural Texas. Fernlund describes Johnson's pedigree by tracing his ancestors, their ties to the land, and the way populism shaped their lives. This is not the typical Johnson biography: it adopts a familiar, compassionate, and domesticated perspective that disconnects the immediate present from the accumulated knowledge one has gathered about LBJ from years of secondary sources. Fernlund wipes the slate clean and begins the story anew, as though it were being told for the first time.

By tying LBJ and his family to the land and showing how politics was a natural fruit of the populism that ran through their veins, Fernlund largely succeeds in his aim to offer the reader a new LBJ — and it works. The only drawback is that this purpose does not lend itself to minute scrutiny but rather to broad generalizations and a general characterization of Johnson. Insofar as Fernlund intends to show how LBJ's liberal tendencies were present from the beginning — evinced, for example, by his joining a liberal Protestant church as a teenager in Texas rather than a conservative one³ — he makes his case. Yet he also shows how the larger world stage ultimately constrained Johnson's ability to put his liberal values to work in a globally meaningful way.

Tone and Critical Limitations

The broad topic that Fernlund gradually explores is never explicitly defined, so there is no sense of urgency or directness in what he is doing. Rather, he begins by painting in broad strokes like a painter and then fills in the details that matter to his overall thesis: that LBJ was a man from Texas with liberal ideals, and that these ideals were only imperfectly implemented throughout his career because of larger inherited problems, namely the Cold War.

The difficulty with this approach is that Fernlund's book reads as an uncritical homage to LBJ and his ideals rather than a hard-hitting examination of the president who came to power after one of the most shocking assassinations in modern history. To examine Johnson in the quaint manner Fernlund employs — coloring him in the light of FDR's "Four Freedoms" rather than in the turbulence that surrounded Kennedy's death — is to engage with the past uncritically and to rely on somewhat superficial and sentimental characterizations. The Four Freedoms were an attempt at "the strengthening of democracy," Fernlund tells the reader.⁴ A more critical biographer could easily frame them in very different terms. Fernlund's aim, however, is to produce a down-home, folksy appreciation of America's past and LBJ's role in shaping it. He succeeds in that aim — but not every reader will be satisfied with it. Fernlund supports his thesis by relying on "greatest age" characterizations, treating the political talking points of the past as high-minded ideals and accepting them at face value as reflective of an America that existed more in the abstract world of imagination than in reality.⁵

Conclusion: Fernlund's Overall Achievement

Overall, Fernlund's perspective encompasses society, events, policies, and individuals. He examines the intersectionality of America's racial issues, economic issues, and foreign and domestic policy challenges, looking at how Johnson was shaped by them and how he helped shape them in turn. Fernlund focuses on issues because issues, he asserts, were what mattered to Johnson — such as the "disproportion of poor blacks to middle class blacks" that was just one of the many problems Johnson had to confront and try to solve.¹¹

Ultimately, Fernlund finds the silver lining of Johnson's career and brings the book to a close by describing LBJ's role in launching NASA. It is an accomplishment perfectly in line with Fernlund's aim: to make Johnson look like an inspired leader and visionary from Texas. Whether or not every reader accepts that portrait, Fernlund's biography offers an accessible, sympathetically drawn account of a president whose legacy remains fiercely debated.

Bibliography

Fernlund, Kevin. Lyndon B. Johnson and Modern America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. 192 pp.