> It is an excellent book but I think it could have an abridged version for the vast majority of people who don’t need the crazy amount of minutiae in it.

From the article:

> There would be other battles, like the one over a long section on the history of grass in Texas Hill Country, in the first volume of the Johnson biography, that Gottlieb wanted to cut—“a tremendous battle, an angry, angry battle” is how Caro, who ended up on the losing side, describes it.

It’s too bad, because the nature of that grass created the economic conditions of Johnson’s early life

As I recall, tons of this background on the geology and ecology of the Texas Hill Country is still in the book.

I disagree. All the details matter. The book is an epic story closer to a Tolstoy novel than a mere biography. It’s about a city and a man’s impact on the city. It’s about all of the people whose lives he benefited and whose lives he ruined. Without that sense of scale, the ending doesn’t work. You don’t have time to build sympathy for Moses and to slowly lose that sympathy. And to finally finish with that conflicted love, hate, pity, and awe that I left the book with.

> The book is an epic story closer to a Tolstoy novel than a mere biography. It’s about a city and a man’s impact on the city. It’s about all of the people whose lives he benefited and whose lives he ruined. Without that sense of scale, the ending doesn’t work. You don’t have time to build sympathy for Moses and to slowly lose that sympathy. And to finally finish with that conflicted love, hate, pity, and awe that I left the book with.

I don’t disagree with any of this.

> All the details matter.

This is where we disagree. I think 30-50% of the book could be cut and you’d still be able to accomplish everything in the first quote above.

Okay I will concede that Caro loves his grand sweeping intro in which he explains that this chapter will outline how Moses evolved in the 30’s, then explain in very close detail how this change happens, then have a grand sweeping recap about how these changes happened and what it meant. It is a lot, but I kind of love this baroque, over the top style.

What's the necessity of making biographies read like fiction?

They’re really really fun to read? Real life can be dramatic too.

The details of building and wielding power is the point of the series.