In 2012, Robert A. Caro published a piece in The New Yorker about the dramatic Presidential transition period after the Kennedy assassination, in November, 1963. Caro portrays Lyndon Johnson as a Vice-President who missed his powerful previous role as the Senate Majority Leader and felt overlooked, at best, by John and Robert Kennedy. Yet, in the hours and days after J.F.K.’s assassination, Johnson came to embody the resolve of the nation to persevere despite an incalculable loss. (“As he stood in front of that blank wall, the carnation still in his buttonhole, there was a stillness about him, an immobility, a composure that hadn’t been seen very much during the previous three years.”) It was during this period, Caro writes, that Johnson took on the mantle of the Presidency and began to demonstrate the leadership that would enable him to enact his most ambitious domestic program, known as the Great Society.
This week, as President-elect Joseph R. Biden navigates President Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud and his refusal to concede defeat, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces about transformational Presidencies. In “A President Looks Back on His Toughest Fight,” Barack Obama writes about the long struggle to achieve health-care reform. (The piece is an excerpt from “A Promised Land,” Obama’s first post-White House memoir, which will be released on Tuesday.) In “Angels and Ages,” Adam Gopnik explores how Abraham Lincoln used his exceptional rhetorical skills to inspire a divided nation. In “Pure Act,” Nicholas Lemann writes about the contradiction between Theodore Roosevelt’s tough exterior and supple diplomacy, for which he received the first Nobel Peace Prize awarded to an American. In “Confessions of a Presidential Candidate,” Jill Lepore examines the importance of Presidential memoirs and delves into the candidates’ origin stories. Finally, in “How the Deal Went Down,” Louis Menand chronicles how Franklin D. Roosevelt harnessed the power of the government to implement the New Deal and help extricate the nation from the Great Depression. As we enter a new political era, we hope that you find these pieces as illuminating as we do.
— David Remnick
Lyndon Johnson and the events in Dallas.
The story behind the Obama Administration’s most enduring—and most contested—legacy: reforming American health care.
Lincoln’s language and its legacy.
Teddy Roosevelt talked tough, but as President he was a peacemaker.
How the political memoir evolved.
Saving democracy in the Depression.
