The Power Broker Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
“Surely the greatest book ever written about a city.” –David Halberstam
“A masterpiece of American reporting. It’s more than the story of a tragic figure or the exploration of the unknown politics of our time. It’s an elegantly written and enthralling work of art.” –Theodore H. White
“The most absorbing, detailed, instructive, provocative book ever published about the making and raping of modern New York City and environs and the man who did it, about the hidden plumbing of New York City and State politics over the last half-century, about the force of personality and the nature of political power in a democracy. A monumental work, a political biography and political history of the first magnitude.” –Eliot Fremont-Smith, New York
“One of the most exciting, un-put-downable books I have ever read. This is definitive biography, urban history, and investigative journalism. This is a study of the corruption which power exerts on those who wield it to set beside Tacitus and his emperors, Shakespeare and his kings.” –Daniel Berger, Baltimore Evening Sun
“Fascinating, every oversize page of it.” –Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek
“A study of municipal power that will change the way any reader of the book hereafter peruses his newspaper.” –Philip Herrera, Time
“A triumph, brilliant and totally fascinating. A majestic, even Shakespearean, drama about the interplay of power and personality.” –Justin Kaplan
“In the future, the scholar who writes the history of American cities in the twentieth century will doubtless begin with this extraordinary effort.” –Richard C. Wade, The New York Times Book Review
“The feverish hype that dominates the merchandising of arts and letters in America has so debased the language that, when a truly exceptional achievement comes along, there are no words left to praise it. Important, awesome, compelling–these no longer summon the full flourish of trumpets this book deserves. It is extraordinary on many levels and certain to endure.” –William Greider, The Washington Post Book World
“Apart from the book’s being so good as biography, as city history, as sheer good reading, The Power Broker is an immense public service.” –Jane Jacobs
“Required reading for all those who hope to make their way in urban politics; for the reformer, the planner, the politician and even the ward heeler.” –Jules L. Wagman, Cleveland Press — Review
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars A book that truly deserves Five Stars
Not often is it that a nonfiction book is all of these at once:
1. Well Written
2. Educational
3. Entertaining
4. Clear
5. Comprehensive
6. Fully documented
This book is quite simply the best of it’s kind I have ever seen. It has done more within the first 50 pages to clearly illustrate certain aspects and personalities of the late 1870s to early 1900s than many other books I have recently read, and that is simply in preparation to the book’s true focus.
Both interesting and intuitive, Caro’s book manages to make history both clear and persuasive. Further, while this book is thick, it does not have the “plodding” feeling many other nonfiction/historical books generally do.
Overall, I cannot recommend this enough, if you are interested at all in any of these:
1. The historical period
2. Civic justice
3. New York
4. The history of parkways or highways
5. Nonfiction in general
and so forth.
This book clearly won the Pulitzer for a good reason.
5 Stars Incredible story of an incredible man
There is no denying the massive influence that Robert Caro had on our perception of Robert Moses. In addition, the years and years of copious research that went into ‘The Power Broker’ makes it a monumental biography that speaks the truth about a man who for years had used the press and political influence to gather more power in NY than practically anyone else.
The book is amazing and the only reason I would consider giving it 4 stars is because the book is fairly heavy and bcomes tedious to hold while reading…
4 Stars An important book to read
Having grown up in upstate NY and having lived in Long Island recently I saw much evidence of Robert Moses’ mark upon the NY metropolitan area. This book is a well-written and thoroughly researched biography on the life of this pivotal figure who shaped modern NYC and state, for the better, and in many cases, for the worse. Published in 1974 and winner of the prestigious Pulitzer prize, author Robert Caro researched and wrote this book at a time when Robert Moses’ legacy was being called into question, NYC was in a fiscal crisis, and many were reconsidering the process by which we should remake our cities.
This is a must read for anyone interested in the urban design and an interest in the kind of tactics this powerful personality used to achieve his objectives.
4 Stars How Old Man Moses Kept Rolling Along
When Shea Stadium is demolished later this year, it will mark another diminishment of the legacy of Robert Moses, the man who built the stadium along with so many of the parks, highways, and buildings that made New York City the city that never sleeps.
But the first and most devastating blow came 34 years ago, when Robert A. Caro wrote this book.
“As long as you’re on the side of the parks, you’re on the side of angels,” Moses would often say. “You can’t lose.”
Others did lose, though, Long Island farmers whose lands Moses confiscated for state highways, middle-class neighborhoods in the way of his superhighways, and the city’s poor who were at best nuisances to the elitist Moses during his decades in power. Combining his management of city affairs with his longer-standing role as state Parks Commission president, Moses was a Nietzschean nightmare of will-to-power pragmatism run amok. As Caro explains it, power was a path to glory, and glory a path to power, in a way that made Moses deaf to all other considerations, both idealistic and practical.
Eventually it made him corrupt, though not in the way it’s more commonly understood. “Some men aren’t satisfied unless they have caviar,” said John A. Coleman, a broker of considerable power himself. “Moses would have been happy with a ham sandwich – and power.”
Caro’s book is an engaging landmark account of Moses’ path, full of vibrant characters like Al Smith and Nelson Rockefeller with whom Moses dealt and clashed. It presents a sense of New York City as an almost living thing, an infrastructure challenge not only because of its developed landscape but because of its unique demands of demographics and geography – only one of its five boroughs, the Bronx, is on the American mainland. Moses’ solutions, however, were often worse than the problems.
Caro spends a long time on Moses’ foibles but never really explains how he amassed such a collection of structural triumphs. Shea Stadium, for example, is only touched upon as background to the failure of Moses’ 1964-65 World’s Fair. His state work, especially upstate, is almost entirely ignored. In damning Moses, Caro leans on some well-researched critical facts as well as some points about Moses’ resistance to mass transit that doesn’t allow for the fact Moses was not the only believer in the power of the automobile. The book reads like quicksilver at points, yet drags in others, especially when Caro is beating home the point of how little Moses cared about other people.
I’m glad I read “Power Broker”, but I can’t ever see myself trying to read it in toto again. It’s exhaustive, single-minded, and giant in scope – much like the man it’s about.
5 Stars Power Reveals
Robert Caro’s THE POWER BROKER is a lession in the use of power in the life and career of Robert Moses, and the consequent effects upon the people and substructure of New York City. Moses is such a disgusting figure, such a tyrant, that I literally found myself shaking at points. The press was in his pocket, elitest and racist, Moses painted himself as the selfless public servant. In reality, he cast people aside by the thousands in order to increase his power and accomplish what he wants. What a vile man. I’ll never look at New York City the same again and I pray that I would never treat people the way he did.
You must log in to post a comment.