https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Lyndon_Johnson

The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson by the American writer Robert Caro. Four volumes have been published, running to more than 3,000 pages in total, detailing Johnson's early life, education, and political career. A fifth volume, which is currently being written, is expected to deal with the bulk of Johnson's presidency and post-presidential years. The series is published by Alfred A. Knopf.

Book Five

In November 2011, Caro estimated that the fifth and final volume—expected to treat the remainder of Johnson's presidency and his life thereafter[13]—would require another two to three years to write.[14] In March 2013, he affirmed a commitment to completing the series with a fifth volume.[15] As of April 2014, he was continuing to research the book.[16] In a televised interview with C-SPAN in May 2017, Caro confirmed over 400 typed pages as being complete, covering the period 1964–65; and that once he completes the section on Johnson's 1965 and 1966 legislative achievements, he intends to move to Vietnam to continue the writing process.[17]

In an interview with the New York Review of Books in January 2018, Caro said that he was writing about 1965 and 1966 and a non-chronological section about the relationship between Johnson and Bobby Kennedy. Asked if he still planned to visit Vietnam soon, Caro replied: "Not yet, no. This is a very long book. And there's a lot to do before that's necessary. I'm getting close to it now."[18] In December 2018, it was reported that Caro is still "several years from finishing" the volume.[13] In January 2020, Caro said he had "typed 604 manuscript pages so far" and is "currently on a section relating to the creation of Medicare in 1965".[19] Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Caro postponed his research trip to Vietnam and a visit to the Johnson Presidential Library, but continued work on the book from his home in Manhattan.[20] In October 2021, Caro said that he was writing about Johnson's passing of Medicare and his escalation of the Vietnam War.[21] In December 2022, Caro related that he still hoped to conduct research in Vietnam.[22] Robert Gottlieb, Caro’s editor for more than fifty years, died in June 2023; a spokesperson for Caro said that he was “continuing his work on Volume 5 with limited interruption”.[23]

In a September 2024 interview for the 50th anniversary of his book The Power Broker, Caro revealed that he was steadily making progress on the fifth book, but was re-writing sections related to the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr. and still had a substantial amount of work to finish when it came to writing about the Vietnam War.[24] He also revealed in separate interviews that he had completed sections related to Medicare and was receiving digital versions of Vietnam-era documents from the Johnson Presidential Library.[25]

Caro provided a few more updates in a February 2025 interview with Smithsonian magazine, where he revealed that he had written 980 pages for his manuscript. He also revealed that he was still working on sections for the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, from its management from Senator Russell Long to its passage through the Senate, and that he planned on embarking his trip to Vietnam once he finished those sections. He also clarified that while he will not allow someone else to finish his work, he will release whatever he's completed to the public if he does pass away.[26]