"No other state has a tighter hold on America's psyche, politics, and wallet than Texas. Two of the last three American presidents - and three of the last eight - have been Texans. Lyndon Johnson, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush all got the White House by exploiting a network of money and power that no other state can match. In this fascinating book, investigative journalist Robert Bryce explains how Texas' business has become America's business and how Texas' politics are now America's politics." "Through a narrative that moves from the days of the oil boom, through the rise and reign of LBJ, to the present, Cronies illuminates how Texas turned its vast energy resources into political power, and how a small group of Texas corporations, lawyers, and politicians have used that power to protect and defend their own economic interests."--BOOK JACKET.