Events

Issues Forum and Book Signing: Mark Updegrove, "Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency"

Join us as Mark Updegrove, Director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, discusses his new book, "Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency." Updegrove offers an intimate portrait of the endlessly fas­cinating LBJ, his extraordinarily eventful presi­dency, and the turbulent times in which he served. We see Johnson in his many guises and dimen­sions: the virtuoso deal-maker using every inch of his six-foot-three-inch frame to intimidate his subjects, the relentless reformer willing to lose southern Democrats from his party for a generation in his pursuit of civil rights for all Americans, and the embattled commander in chief agonizing over the fate of his "boys" in Vietnam — including his two sons-in-law — yet steadfast in his determination to thwart Communist aggression through war, or an honorable peace.

Through original interviews and personal accounts from White House aides and Cabinet members, political allies and foes, and friends and family — from Robert McNamara to Barry Goldwa­ter, Lady Bird Johnson to Jacqueline Kennedy — as well as through Johnson's own candid reflections and historic White House telephone conversa­tions, Indomitable Will reveals LBJ as never before. "For it is through firsthand narrative more than anything," writes Updegrove, "that Lyndon John­son — who teemed with vitality in his sixty-four years and remains enigmatic nearly four decades after his passing — comes to life."

Updegrove is an award-winning author and presidential historian with over two decades of leadership experience within top media and communications organizations including Time, Newsweek and Yahoo, Inc. Often called on by the news media to offer commentary on the presidency, CNN has called Updegrove one of the "country's best presidential historians."

Review for "Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency"

"In history there's no substitute for being there — unless it's hearing the candid insights, rev­elations, and occasional belly laugh from those who were. Thanks to Mark Updegrove and his battery of historical eyewitnesses, presented here, as LBJ himself would attest, "with the bark off," we don't simply relive the past ... we experience one of America's most colorful, polarizing, galvanizing, and, yes, entertaining public lives from the inside out. Whatever you think of Lyn­don Johnson, you'll never see him in quite the same light after plunging into this compulsively readable group portrait." —Richard Norton Smith, George Mason University, and author of Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation

Following the talk will be a reception, book sale and signing. The event is free but seating is limited, so please be sure to make your reservations by calling (979) 691-4014, or email to reservations.bush@nara.gov.