“Power unmasks what was underneath all along,” Caro says. “Johnson had compassion for the downtrodden and the passion to raise them up.” His achievement of that goal represented an apex in his career.

Many readers have praised the accessibility of Caro’s books, which often readi more like novels than history.

“Non-fiction that endures for me is written at the same high level as fiction,” he explains. “I always ask, ‘Can the reader see what’s happening?’”

Another of the skills that many laud in Caro’s work is his passionate commitment to research. The writer actually moved south with his wife to get to the root of Johnson’s Texas hill country upbringing. With her help, he interviewed hundreds of witnesses to various events, often going back two or three times “trying to recreate the meetings that took place.”

Caro is currently working on the fourth, and in all likelihood last of his books on Johnson, which will cover his vice-presidential and presidential years.

“The life of Lyndon Johnson for me is a very poignant life,” Caro says, “most of all because he was never satisfied to stay where he was.”

—Staff writer Jayme J. Herschkopf can be reached at herschk@fas.harvard.edu.