The Transformative Agenda of LBJ

In The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society, Julian E. Zelizer argues that Johnson spearheaded the most transformative agenda in American political history since the New Deal. In just three years, Johnson drove the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts; the War on Poverty program; Medicare and Medicaid; the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities; Public Broadcasting; immigration liberalization; a raft of consumer and environmental protection acts; and major federal investments in public transportation.