The Two Sides of Lyndon Johnson

This year, in November, it will be 20 years since the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson’s ascension to the presidency, and January 22 marked the tenth anniversary of his death, at the age of 64—a frustrated and bitter political has-been living in self-imposed exile from the political scene.

These three new books all seek to make this complex, fiercely energetic man more comprehensible. All three contribute to our understanding, though by no means do they an...