Rating: 
Summary: Power corrupts . . .
Review: The Power Broker by Robert Caro deftly weaves together a myriad of stories, histories, biographies and sociological trends into a fascinating narrative on the development of New York City and the man who guided, controlled and ultimately placed an indelible stamp on the physical layout of modern world capital.Robert Moses, a man of considerable intellectual capacity and enormous energy, demonstrates also an insatiable appetite for political power. His flaw is his fundamental dislike for the people he serves. The type of power he seeks is not that based in electoral competition and consent of the governed but that of bureaucratic power in the service of the most powerful segments of society. Having once attained power, he employs all of the tools at his disposal to become the indispensable man, repeatedly challenging his politically elected, nominal bosses to fire him. His ability to continue in office through repeated changes in leadership is a testament to his tenacity and ruthlessness. He then uses the appointed positions he has attained to acquire others. One of his early positions is as an aide to Al Smith in the New York Legislature. Here he learns to write laws and, using his considerable talents masters the arcane art of drafting legislation. This serves him well in later years as he cajoles and bullies legislators to create special districts, which have as the head of the district whoever is currently the head of the Long Island State Parks Commission. Who might that be? You guessed it. His power continues to grow through the century and his influence on the growth of New York is inescapable. That he may have done a lot of good is a question open for debate. Are the results of an undemocratic and in many ways authoritarian process good? Do the ends justify the means? He may have been able to "get the job done" and "he made the vaunted bureaucracy of city hall bend to his wishes" but he did so in highly disagreeable and bullying way. It is also a testament to his personality that Robert Moses continually went out of his way to sabotage the career of his brother and to the day he died, his only brother hated him. It is only when he runs up against Nelson Rockefeller that he meets his match. Here Moses has an adversary with equally developed ego and with enormous resources to take him on. Indeed, the bonded funding for much of Moses' projects came from the Rockefeller controlled Chase Manhattan Bank. It is this leverage that Rockefeller uses to finally push Moses out of power. An incredibly well written book. Highly detailed and long with a densely layered structure.. This is one long book that I did not want to end. John C. McKee
Rating:
Summary: So Much for Democracy at Work in New York City
Review: Previous to reading Mr. Caro's superb book, I knew Robert Moses only as an urban master builder who, admittedly, marched to the beat of his own drum. This book will give you the details and the background on every shady municipal deal in New York City from maybe 1890 to about 1974. Moses, the idealistic reformer, finds himself shut out of the Tammany Hall quid-pro-quo dictatorship, and reinvents himself as the ultimate, unstoppable dispenser of power and money. Moses stopped cooperating with Caro when the author's questions gave him a sense of where this work was leading. Caro scrupulously credits Moses with brilliance, vision and daring, time and again. Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is always quick to follow. Having read Caro's work, I now feel obligated to look at Moses' side of the story, but, no two ways about it, this is an absolutely amazing work. If Richard Condon hadn't used the title first, Caro might well have called this MILE HIGH. In any case, if you're depressed about government pushing people around, DON'T read this book. Your worst fears WILL be confirmed.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant, but imbalanced
Review: Although this book is over 1300 pages, Caro does an extraordinary job chronicling the life of Robert Moses. This book is a real page turner and you can't help but be inspired and repulsed by what Robert Moses did.
This book's main flaw is its relentlessly negative view of Robert Moses. It is true that Moses permanently altered the relationship between New York City and the suburbs. He destroyed vital neighborhoods and undermined the stability of surrounding areas. However, it is a mistake to say (as Caro does) that Moses was the sole cause of what happened afterwards. Suburbanization (and urban renewal, but that's another topic!) after the Second World War was encouraged by all levels of government. To put it another way, if Moses hadn't built the highways (and cleared the "slums"), someone else would have.
In reality, the long-term stability of American cities was undermined by VA mortgages (often cheaper than renting), red lining, cheap oil and the interstate highways. Common wisdom says that the race riots "caused" suburbanization. The truth is that suburbanization was already far advanced in 1965; the riots merely sped up the process. Incidentally, 1965 was the year of the Watts riots, the first major urban disturbance in the 1960s. Despite the anti-Moses bias of this book, I'm still giving it four stars because it is such a good read! For a more detailed examination of New York's problems in the late 20th Century, I suggest "Geography of Nowhere" by James Howard Kunstler, "The Ungovernable City" by Vincent Cannato, "The Assassination of New York" by Robert Fitch, and the 1961 classic "The Life and Death of American Cities" by Jane Jacobs.
Rating:
Summary: The best biography ever. An amazing read!
Review: Don't be daunted by the length of this book. Caro's exhaustive work about one of the most politically-powerful men in 20th Century New York (who was never elected to public office) is a page-turner and a classic story of a man acquiring power for power's sake. Many readers and historians have used this book for a primer on how NOT to conduct urban planning. Moses' heavy hand, disdain for delays and love of the automobile in transit-centered New York City are really only a small part of this story. Like the title says, I think Caro really wrote a tale of a man whose official job titles were "only" the head of the Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority and the NY Parks system, but the power he wielded shook mayors, senators and even a president or two along the way. His power transcended political party and popular will, and only did late in his career, as he battled society women over expanding a parking lot in Central Park, did he begin to fall from his once-untouchable pedestal. Caro emphasizes that Moses never used power for financial wealth, and lived modestly his entire life. Caro does a phenomenal job by describing how Moses' insistence on building the Cross-Bronx Expy through the heart of a thriving residential neighborhood led to the widescale decay of that neighborhood for generations to come. It was certainly the book's high point. Historians today now look at Moses with a kinder light than Caro did in 1974, citing him for the quality and aesthetic touches he put into many of his highways and parks (remember, by 1974, "form follows function" reigned supreme, and all public buildings and projects were bland, faceless monoliths of concrete and cinderblocks). Even the oft-quoted statement that Moses deliberately designed his parkway bridges too low to accomodate buses has been discredited by Caro himself in later years. Even if you have never ridden public transit or set foot in New York City, you will not be disappointed by this book. It is perhaps the best biography I have ever written and one of my favorite works of non-fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A scathing, but brilliant, portrayal of a powerful man.
Review: As with his biographies of LBJ, Caro delivers a scathing critique of the means and purposes of a powerful man in 20th century American government. "Power at all costs" is the theme he applies to both subjects. The amount of detailed research in the book is amazing. We are able to follow the character development of Moses from his days as an idealistic civic reformer through the transformation by which he became one the most shrewd, and venal, operators in the system he set out to reform. As the years go by, we learn that although Moses's energy and ambition do not wane, his ideas of urban infrastructure design are hopelessly out of date. Furthermore, his preference for glamorous bridges instead of more practical tunnels, and his stilting of the mass transit system in favor of more and more expressways results in censure from Caro. In he end, we are intended to believe that the work of Robert Moses has become a barrier to the development of the greatest American city. In his judgement of Moses, however, Caro still brings out the genius of one of the most influential shapers of modern urban design of the last century. The genius was, unfortunately, corrupted by the trappings of absolute power in his field. The book is worth reading as an insight into urban politics, as a history of the infrastructure of New York, as a character study of an amazing personality and as a well written narrative biography. Combined, these factors make the 1200 pages well worth plowing though. Several unexpected stories within the book could stand alone as great (but certainly not impartial) writing. The story of a Jewish neighborhood that was torn down to make room for a Moses expressway is perhaps the most powerful passage in the book. One final point is that Caro tends to sensationalize the sins of Moses, while painting other characters in a more positive light. For example, very little of the political machinations of Fiorello LaGaurdia and Al Smith are discussed, making Moses look evil in comparison to the two. Caro does a similar thing with his portrayal of Coke Stevenson in the LBJ books. Caro definitely sets out to get Robert Moses, but he backs up his criticism with a brilliant book.
Rating:
Summary: Let them eat highways
Review: After reading this book you might well wonder how this arrogant public servant escaped prison. You might want to petition to have every park and roadway that is named after him renamed! On the other hand Robert Caro makes the case for how and why Robert Moses was able to do what he did extremely understandable, and even, inevitable to a point. In the early years, as Caro rightly points out, Robert Moses' vision helped the city out of its doldrums of the Great Depression. He offered hope and a future when the present seemed so doubtful. At what point did Moses shift from a true visionary to a ruthless, megalomaniacal autocrat? To a neighborhood-squashing tyrant without conscience? There is no one event or series of events to explain this change, and Caro wisely avoids claiming there is. That is not his concern, anyway. What Caro does map out are the paths of destruction that Moses gouged through the metropolitan area. The interviews and extended quotations are very revealing, almost chilling. Moses's sang froid about New Yorkers--and how he cultivated it for half a century--defies reason. Yet this book, "The Power Broker" is as close to an understanding of Robert Moses as we'll ever get.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best
Review: One could go on and on about this book. Simply stated, it's the best non-fiction book of the 20th Century. It's a must read for anyone interested in American civilization.
Rating:
Summary: Now I understand....
Review: My only regret after having read this tome is that I didn't read it 5 years earlier when I moved to the Metro NY area. As well as being an excellent biography, The Power Broker offers the key to seeing and understanding why the region is like it is and how it got that way. This is still undoubtedly a magnificent book and 28 years after its original publication, still well worth the effort to read it. I would have preferred to see a little more on the social and historical context of the times which, I suspect, might add some shading to Caro's stark assessment of Moses. (e.g. most US cities ended up "road-heavy, mass transit-light", but they didn't have Robert Moses; I suspect he may have reflected his times as well as shaping them) Having finished the book, and in discussion with a friend in the Metro Transportation Authority I made the comment that Moses' influence had waned completely by the time he died in 1981. "Oh, Robert Moses isn't dead" was his reply. As I drove back to my suburban home along an RM creation at a pace no faster than an arthritic snail, I understood his reply.
Rating:
Summary: Absorbing and immensely detailed tome
Review: The Power Broker sits at the top of the list of histories and biographies of New York and its people. Caro scrupulously details the political workings of New York for more than half a century and describes the means by which the city was (literally) shaped. It is a monumental work in urban history and political biography. Robert Caro documents the use and acquisition of political capital and power better than any other author, and this is no exception. What is more amazing, still, is the depth and quality of research. In reading The Power Broker you come away with not only a history of New York's parks and Moses' lust for power, but shorter biographies and histories neatly sewn into the text, e.g., a detailed but brief biography of Al Smith. The thorough background Caro presents is often as mesmerizing as the rest of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Mr. Burns
Review: Many years ago a power-hungry man, with the biggest ego ever seen in recent times, decided to build a freeway (the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway) right THROUGH my neighborhood. This was done to many dozens of other little enclaves all over New York City. He ruthlessly ordered many people to move-out so that his highways could be built and he destroyed many communities by spliting ethnic enclaves right in two. He also had the audacity to build his highways all along the waterfront just because of his own strong opinion that the picturesque scenery of the rivers surrounding NYC should be seen by people driving by and NOT by the pedestrians who actually live nearby. That's because he was always driven everywhere he went, and never learned to drive! (This is revealed in the book) The man was absolutely rude.
The image that will spring to mind while your reading is one of Mr. Burns from "The Simpson's" being in total control of Springfield.
In short, this humongous book tells of the story of what happens when there are no laws limiting the power any individual should have. I gave it only 3-stars because the author documents much more than is necessary and that increases the size of the book, which in turn discourages the average person from undertaking the serious task of reading it from cover to cover.
| 
