One of the 100 best non-fiction books of all time according to Time - now a Top Ten Sunday Times Bestseller
Robert A. Caro has been described as 'the greatest political
biographer of our times' (Sunday Times) and 'a world authority on
the nature of power and how to use it' (Guardian). Born and raised
in New York City, he graduated from Princeton University, later
became a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and was an
investigative reporter for Newsday for six years.
His first book, The Power Broker, won the Pulitzer Prize in
biography and the Frances Parkman Prize of the Society of American
Historians. His subsequent books comprise a multi-volume work, The
Years of Lyndon Johnson, 'regarded by many as the greatest
political biography of the modern era' (The Times). Over the course
of four volumes, he has become one of the most lauded writers of
his generation, winning three National Book Critics Circle Awards,
the National Book Award and a further Pulitzer Prize. He is
currently at work on the fifth and final volume.
In addition, Robert Caro has also been awarded virtually every
other major literary honour, including the Gold Medal in Biography
from the National Academy of Arts and Letters and the National
Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama, the highest
award in the humanities given in the United States. He lives in New
York City with his wife, Ina, an historian and writer.
Simply one of the best non-fiction books in English of the past 40
years ... There has probably never been a better dissection of
political power ... From the first page ... you know that you are
in the hands of a master ... riveting ... superb ... not just a
stunning portrait of perhaps the most influential builder in world
history ... but an object lesson in the dangers of power
*Sunday Times*
One of the great biographies of all time ... [by] one of the great
reporters of our time ... and probably the greatest biographer. He
is also an extraordinary writer. After reading page 136 of his book
The Power Broker, I gasped and read it again, then again. This, I
thought, is how it should be done ... said to be one of the
greatest nonfiction works ever written ... Every MP, wonk and
would-be wonk in Westminster has read [Robert Caro's The Years of
Lyndon Johnson], because they think it is the greatest insight into
power ever written. They’re nearly right: it’s the second greatest
after The Power Broker
*Sunday Times*
I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I
was 22 years old and just being mesmerized, and I'm sure it helped
to shape how I think about politics
*Barack Obama*
This is irresistibly readable, an outright masterpiece and
unparalleled insight into how power works and perhaps the greatest
portrait ever of a world city
*Evening Standard*
A stupendous achievement ... Caro's style is gripping, indeed
hypnotic, and he squeezes every ounce of drama from his remarkable
story … Can a democracy combine visionary leadership with effective
checks and balances to contain the misuse of power? No book
illustrates this fundamental dilemma of democracy better than The
Power Broker ... Indeed, no student of government can regard his
education as complete until he has read it
*Independent*
Remarkable … we learn as much about the intoxication and addiction
of power as we do about the bureaucratic titan whose imprint on New
York bears comparison with his only modern equivalent, the smasher
and rebuilder of Paris, Baron Haussmann … [with] his detailed
reporting and rhythmic prose, his great acuity for understanding
and describing the nuances of politics and power … [Robert Caro]
has no contemporary rivals
*Spectator*
Monumental … extraordinary … The writing never flags. The detail is
never irrelevant. The sheer relentlessness has a mesmeric quality.
The character sketches … are wonderful … the way in which he shows
how power is attained and how it can corrupt [is] fascinating …
This book has helped change the way history is written
*The Times*
An epic, meticulously detailed study of power in general: how it’s
acquired, how it’s used to change history, how it ultimately
corrupts those who get it ... Masterfully, Caro shows how Moses
transformed New York in ways both progressive and backward, benign
and cruel ... as an account of how power and ambition shape the
urban environment, The Power Broker has yet to be beaten
*Guardian*
The story of how Robert Moses made and broke people and places is
astonishing. It comes so highly recommended that it is
unignorable
*Observer*
A truly exceptional achievement … Important, awesome, compelling …
extraordinary on many levels and certain to endure
*Washington Post*
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
*Baltimore Evening Sun*
Surely the greatest book ever written about a city
*David Halberstam*
Irresistible reading. It is like one of the great Russian novels,
overflowing with characters and incidents that all fit into a vast
mosaic of plot and counterplot. Only this is no novel. This is a
college education in power corruption
*St. Louis Post-Dispatch*
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
*New York*
A triumph, brilliant and totally fascinating. A majestic, even
Shakespearean, drama about the interplay of power and
personality
*Justin Kaplan*
Caro has written one of the finest, best-researched and most
analytically informative descriptions of our political and
governmental processes to appear in a generation
*Washington Post*
Caro’s achievement is staggering … A milestone in literary and
publishing history
*Houston Post*
An extraordinary study of the workings of power, individually,
institutionally, politically, and economically
*Wall Street Journal*
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*
In the future, the scholar who writes the history of American
cities in the twentieth century will doubtless begin with this
extraordinary effort
*The New York Times Book Review*
This superb life of city planner Robert Moses is also an epic study
of power that helped shape Obama’s politics
*Sunday Times*
Even if you’ve never heard of Moses, the freshness of Caro’s prose
makes this an exhilarating study in power
*Sunday Times*
There has never been a better book about the art of politics, nor a
more riveting study of what power does to an individual
*BBC History Magazine*
Its ambition, which is vast, matches the scale of vision of its
subject… Aside from being a considerable work of biography, The
Power Broker is a near-peerless work of narrative nonfiction.
Caro’s style is born of his obsessive attention to detail: he
specialises in the rapid-fire accumulation of crushing facts, and
the well-placed one-sentence paragraph that knocks you out like a
sucker-punch… There are many moments of greatness in this brilliant
book.
*Irish Times*
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