Loading... The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974)by Robert A. Caro
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Totally absorbing book. The subject matter is riveting and the prose is top-shelf. Paints an at times depressing picture of how New York was (and likely is) governed. ( ) Caro's blistering bio of urban planner Robert Moses. Am immense work, delving into the life and work of one of NY's most powerful, somewhat behind the scenes, architects of the city we know today. Fascinating. Caro is a treasure, makes me want to start on his LBJ books. What can I say that hasn't been said? If you want to understand New York or how American government really works, read this book, especially if you are on the lower rungs of the ladder. Robert Caro is simply genius that has left no source of information unexamined. Caro's "The Power Broker" is easily one of the best books I've ever read. And although it clocks in at over 1,200 pages, the prose is so well-written that it reads much faster. What makes it great? Caro does not pander or bend in the face of Moses' enormous ego but instead calmly and methodically presents this man's life as though he were a regular joe – not the most powerful man in New York for nearly fifty years. In Caro's presentation, Moses' extraordinary achievements – shaping and molding the history and landscape of New York – are presented candidly, with his backroom machinations in plain view, and his true self and political and racial beliefs at full disclosure. But most impressively, Caro writes in plain English, wending his way through Moses' complicated, evil genius without losing the reader in technical language. The end product is as complete and composed a man's life has ever been reported. Perhaps the best biography published in the 1970s, this is the deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1975. no reviews | add a review
References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in English (21)Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0394720245, Paperback)One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes, The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today.In revealing how Moses did it--how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force--Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own. (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:11:03 -0400) Moses is pictured as idealist reformer and political manipulator as his rise to power and eventual domination of New York State politics is documented. |
Google Books — Loading...
Popular coversRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |