Robert Caro knows the ebbs and flows of history better than most. As someone who’s written acclaimed biographies of both Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert Moses, he has a singular perspective on how countries and cities have weathered crises throughout the years — and how we might look to, and learn from, the past.
At the Associated Press, Hillel Italie explores what social distancing has done to Caro’s writing routine. At 84, Caro is at work on the fifth and final volume of his Lyndon Johnson biography, making daily trips to his office to complete more work on the book. Italie notes that certain crucial steps in Caro’s research process for this volume have needed to be postponed as a result of the pandemic:
The historian had been hoping to visit Vietnam in March as part of his research for his Johnson book, but postponed the trip. He needs to looks through some papers in the Johnson presidential library in Austin, Texas, but is resigned to waiting indefinitely. [sic]
As he writes about Johnson’s time in office dealing with a troubled nation, Caro’s comments about that stage of the presidency resonate across the years. “I’m trying to show in this section of this book what it’s like to be president of the United States when everything is going wrong,” he told Italie.
The article offers some clues as to what readers can expect from the forthcoming biography — including an exploration of how Medicare changed the lives of many Americans over a certain age. It’s one of several ways in which Caro’s work dovetails with contemporary politics, and which helps explain why his work is so popular among readers.
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