A look at the Pulitzer winners

Legendary biographer Robert Caro has spent 25 years of his life chronicling Lyndon Johnson's - and he hasn't even gotten to the vice presidency, presidency, and post-presidency yet. This third volume in Caro's award- winning series recounts more of Johnson's ruthlessness, which dominated the second volume. In every sphere of his life, Johnson gathered power humbly; once he had it, he exercised it brutally. But, somehow, as an authoritarian, Johnson made democracy work for the American citizenry. This volume also marks a return to what Caro terms the "bright thread" of Johnson's life: the public-policy changes he helped bring about during his two terms in the US Senate, especially the civil rights improvements. Caro also calls attention to Johnson's genius as a political organizer. Nobody, he argues, has ever wielded legislative power more skillfully - and his history of the Senate shows why. Before Johnson arrived, Caro says, the Senate was a farce, whose deliberations, far from democratic, were governed by seniority. Though Caro's previous two volumes are superb, a newcomer won't be lost by jumping into this painstakingly researched, beautifully written installment. Winner of the National Book Award in nonfiction and a National Book Critics Circle nominee. (1,167 pp.) (Reviewed May 2, 2002) By Steve Weinberg

Some poetry ought to be read aloud; verse, however, begs to be sung. This is certainly the case with the work of Irish-born poet Paul Muldoon. There's an alliterative music contained in each line of this book, born along by Muldoon's clever use of rhyme. "Feckless as he was feckless, as likely as her to be in a foofaraw," goes one line. It doesn't matter that a reader hasn't a clue what such words mean. Their sound alone evokes a certain meaning, which the poem's cadence carries forward. Unlike the poetry of his nearest contemporaries, Derek Mahon and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, Muldoon's has a contemporary whimsy to it. Like these poets, though, Muldoon is a master of the pastoral. Many poems here unfold in Muldoon's native Northern Ireland. By turns humorous and dour, "Moy Sand and Gravel" takes readers on a tour of this lush countryside, pausing in towns pocked by history: Derryfubble, Dunnamanagh and Ballynascreen, Seskinore, Baleek and Bellanaleck. Thanks to mouthfuls like these, it may take some readers a few turns through "Moy Sand and Gravel" to get their tongues around its particular rhythms. That's not such a bad thing. Cheeky, fanciful, full of soul, and sprung by twinkle-eyed winks at readers' intelligence, these poems will stand the test of many encores. (120 pp.) By John Freeman

After Milosevic murdered the Muslims; Hutu Power hacked up the Tutsis; Hussein gassed the Kurds; Pol Pot butchered the Cambodians; Hitler slaughtered the Jews; and Talaat massacred the Armenians, Powers writes, Americans shook their heads and wondered how their country could have failed to intervene to stop such crimes. The devastating conclusion of her masterful book is: America didn't fail; it meant to look the other way. During each genocide (even before international law established that name), the US had sufficient evidence to understand that a people and its culture were being systematically destroyed. In almost every case, a US representative on the ground tried - and was personally devastated by his failure - to draw governmental attention to the impending slaughter. In every instance, the US could have chosen to intervene, diplomatically or militarily, in time to save millions. And in every case, the government ignored, and often even suppressed, the information it received. In all of 20th-century American politics, no unwritten policy was so faithfully adhered to. And why? Because, Power posits, politicians do not believe they will be held to account for the things they fail to do. In this sweeping study, she makes a powerful case that if the world is to survive, they must. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. (574 pp.) By Mary Wiltenburg

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