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LBJ's Neglected Legacy: How Lyndon Johnson Reshaped Domestic Policy and Government. Edited by Robert H. Wilson, Norman J. Glickman, and Laurence E. Lynn Jr. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. 481 pp.
Now a half-century since President Johnson's "Great Society" program was signed into law, LBJ's Neglected Legacy: How Lyndon Johnson Reshaped Domestic Policy and Government sheds new light on how it changed the presidency and the government itself. The editors have chosen a selection of policies, they argue, that provide sufficient breadth and variation to allow for comparing policy outcomes and the range of factors affecting them. The volume is divided into six parts, with chapters framed around three central questions: (1) "What was the policy and institutional status quo at the time that the LBJ administration adopted a particular initiative?" (2) "What were the features of the 'new status quo,' that is, the changes brought about by legislation or by executive action, by the conclusion of the Johnson administration?" and (3) "Following the end of Johnson's administration, was the policy sustained, altered, or terminated?" (10).
Part I, "Reconsidering LBJ's Domestic Policies," contains a chapter that focuses on how Lyndon Johnson approached domestic policy making. Here, historian Robert Dallek addresses...