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Caro and Ideology

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It’s Caro Spring here at LGM. I like Caro, even as I am currently reading about St. Coke of Texas. But I think this post at U.S Intellectual History is right on and represents the huge difference between professional history and popular biography:

Caro contends that in a moment of “deep crisis” such as the transition of the presidency because of tragedy, the power of the presidency “can be observed in all its facets.” Thus, power acts as a character in the book. Almost independent of Johnson and the Kennedy brothers, power circulates through the Senate chamber, it’s out on the campaign trail in 1958 in advance of the 1960 primaries, and it resides in the families of these men. To say that Johnson and the Kennedys had to contend with power would be to miss the relationship they appeared to have with a spectral force that made them into historical actors.

And yet, it stuck me as curious that Caro’s depiction of power seems nearly devoid of ideology and even, in a way, of politics. Power is psychological, familial; it is fear-inducing, and confidence-building; but it is not liberal or conservative, radical or reactionary. So Caro does not identify a relationship between power and ideology, at least through the 1960s primaries. Johnson commands the Senate, he wheels and deals within Texas’s corrupt political machines, and he hates, cajoles, and flip-flops his way toward the Democratic convention in 1960. Caro’s characterizations of the Kennedy brothers is similar in the faintness of ideology and prominence of psychological traits.

It’s certainly fun to think of the individual as power player. But is it accurate? Does it present a realistic portrayal of the past? That’s obviously a question we have to answer as individuals. Certainly the general public prefers to think about the Great Man rather than ideology. I tend to be in the opposite camp, even as I enjoy a solid biography from time to time.

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