It is, but it's about much more than that. From the title, you might think that this book is about Lyndon Johnson's life in the Senate. This said, if you want to understand American politics in the 1940s and 1950s, this is the book for you. As someone who is instinctively pro-Johnson's achievements, his behaviour in the race can, at best, be described as distasteful, and certainly left me thinking considerably less of him. Much of the book looks at how Johnson won his 1948 Senate race. In short, it covers the period when Johnson was a congressman just before, during, and after, World War 2, and his He has just lost his first senate race (that he almost certainly won), and focuses on the period between this loss, and his subsequent successful campaign for the Senate in 1948 (that he almost certainly lost). This book picks up where the first book finishes. Means of Ascent is the second book in the series about Lyndon Johnson, and America (with a special focus on the South), during his life. I understand politicians have to be ruthless, and show a certain "low cunning" if they want to achieve anything in life, but the Johnson shown here takes ruthlessness and low cunning to a whole new level, and I find it hard to contrast that with what he would later achieve with the War on Poverty, and the Great Society.
Where I got depressed by the book was in its' portrayal of Johnson. It looks at the Texas Johnson grew up in generally for example, and gives us considerable detail about the characters that inhabit Texas' political landscape at the time. If you're expecting it to be a straight biography of Lyndon Johnson's life and his family, you'd be right and wrong, for while the book looks at Johnson's life and family, it strays, interestingly, from what you'd expect from a typical biography. As I'm sure people know now, it has morphed into a (probable) 5 book series, though this book still covers Johnson's life up to his first electoral loss. When he started this book, Caro intended the series to be 3 books, Johnson from birth to his first electoral loss (this book), Johnson in the senate, and Johnson as president. This is an interesting, if depressing book, especially if you came into this series of books with a generally positive view of Lyndon Johnson.
This is a set of the first 4 books in Robert Caro's 5 book (at least) biography of Lyndon Johnson:
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