This is the best non-fiction book I have ever read. Seriously. It is probably the best biography, the best urban history, and the best study of power written in the latter half of the 20th century (though Caro's still-unfinished LBJ saga may top "Broker;" I haven't read those yet). Essentially, for 40+ years Robert Moses was the most powerful man in the entire state of New York. A large portion of his power was derived from his chairmanship of the Triborough Bridge Authority. Typically, a public authority shuts down after its bonds have been repaid and its construction projects have been finished. But Moses, called by Caro "the best bill drafter in Albany," set up the Authority in a way that allowed him to continually issue bonds year after year after year. And since the Constitution states that "No states shall...impair the obligations of contracts," no one could do anything about it. Triborough became a small empire for Moses...at its homebase on Randall's Island, the TBA was the supreme law of the land, and it was enforced by some 200 TBA police officers. Moses often used them to escort his big limousine around NYC and Long Island. One big factor in Moses' power was the press. For four decades he maintained the image of a totally non-political and selfless public servant (he famously refused to take a salary for most of his positions). The sometimes-willful ignorance of the press to Moses' abuses of power is amazing to read. Caro painstakingly documents so many of them. His genius and his impact are absolutely inimitable. Name a major bridge, parkway, expressway, thruway, park, or beach in the New York metropolitan area, Long Island, or New York State, and the MAJORITY of them will have been built by Robert Moses. This was a guy who almost never slept, who swam out into the middle of the ocean alone when he was in his 80s, who fell into absolutely horrifying bouts of rage when someone dared to disagree with him. He may have been one of the greatest abusers of power in recent history but, as Caro says, he "Got Things Done." I loved reading about the absolute control he exercised over various New York mayors, governors, and other officials. He would routinely ignore requests to meet with mayors; if they wanted to meet with Moses, they had to come to him. Every time a new mayor was sworn in, Moses would grab the slips on which mayoral appointments were written and write his own name and position on them. The mayor would then meekly sign it, knowing that he couldn't possibly deny Moses any of those positions. I could say so much more but the other reviewers have already covered the book's strengths. I'll end with this: Moses was one of the most fascinating politicians in the history of this country. But so many have already forgotten him. I hope people will read this book to learn not only about Moses, bu about New York, Washington, and most importantly the use of political power in this country.

This was on my reading list for many years and I was surprised to see it pop up on the bookshelves of TV news personalities in Zoom interviews during the pandemic. Then came the 2022 documentary “Turn Every Page” about Caro’s writing process and Robert Gottlieb’s editing. I was sold and decided to take the plunge. First, there’s a lot of detail on every page. It tells you the details of not just Moses as a “Power Broker,” but the ins and outs of civil planning, laws, government funding, etc. Some of these details might be difficult to understand, but it’s filled with excellent information about how Moses took advantage of all these things and exploited them in every way possible. “The Power Broker” is said to be a portrait of the man who built New York, but it’s more than that. It’s about the shaping of modern day New York, the financial institutions, erosion of Tammany Hall, the importance of infrastructure and how civil planning has been used for good and bad. “The Power Broker” is unprecedented and extremely detailed because all the previous attempts to profile Moses were written with his involvement and control of the narrative. Caro wrote an objective biography with some access to Moses and some of the people who worked for him or whose careers he destroyed. This was Caro’s opportunity to tell the real story and even though Moses has been vindicated in some ways, not all the means are justified. It’s a long read (1100+ pages excluding the reference notes and index), but it’s worth every page. It took me 3 months because I examined many subjects, figures, associated stories, etc.

The Power Broker is a book I assume that sits on quite a few reading lists, but rarely actually gets read. Coming in at 1,162 pages, 1,300+ when including notes and index, it’s easy to understand why. It’s a monster. But anyone who is brave enough to commit to reading it will be rewarded for doing so. Robert Caro has written a masterpiece. The Power Broker is a biography of Robert Moses, the transformative city planner of New York during the mid-1900s, who was obsessed with one thing: power. Robert Moses accomplished things that even some U.S. presidents can only dream of, all while never being elected to public office. He almost singlehandedly built the world’s greatest city and most of New York state. But he did so in a way that was at times truly sickening. Beginning as a young idealist in college and his first jobs in local government, Moses quickly realized that even the greatest of ideas needs power to bring them to fruition. Robert Moses learned the ins and outs of government to bend it to his will to put himself in positions of increasing power, until eventually not even President FDR could control him. Long lost were the ideals. Power was all that mattered. For over forty years, Moses ran the state of New York like a king, amassing astronomical amounts of money to build more infrastructure than most countries. Parks, roads, highways, stadiums. If it was built by the government, it went through Robert Moses. Just by looking at his achievements, one might think Robert Moses was a hero. And many others did. City planners from around the world traveled to New York to witness his creations in person and to seek out his advice. But in reality, Moses’s hero image was carefully crafted by his manipulation of the New York media. Moses had every newspaper in town in his back pocket. Beneath the mask shown to the public was a truly despicable man. Robert Moses was the combination of the worst aspects of Steve Jobs, Lance Armstrong, and Donald Trump. Moses drove his aides (“Moses men”) into the ground. He destroyed the careers of countless people on his path to power. Anyone who even slightly disagreed with him was met with a fury of personal attacks. Moses’s only campaign for public office was filled with so much rage and lies that it would make today’s political circus acts look like a bible study. He was an outright racist as evident by the complete scarcity of parks in minority neighborhoods. Moses intentionally built highway bridges so low that buses, typically used by blacks, couldn’t drive out to the recreation areas "reserved" for the affluent whites. His inability to listen to any opinions other than his own lead him to drive New York into a state of misery. Thinking he was creating a utopia, Moses built so many roads without any public transportation that he sentenced entire generations of New Yorkers to lifetimes of traffic. I truly believe Robert Moses was the most evil person who never directly killed someone. The stories were infuriating to read. Only Moses's downfall at the hand of Nelson Rockefeller brought some sort of emotional justice. Despite the terror of reading the intricate details of such a terrible person, the book is endlessly fascinating. From the very beginning of the book, Robert Caro teaches a masterclass on writing. From Moses’s family history to old age, Caro describes everything in ridiculous detail. Caro says researching and writing the book took seven years. I was left wondering how he accomplished it in such a short time. There is so much information packed into this book. And given the length, most of it was warranted. But, about half way through, it did start to feel formulaic. Some parts were less interesting and many times I felt the level of detail was so exhausting that I started skipping past it. I noticed that just reading the first and last sentence of most paragraphs would often give you what you needed to know. All in all, I think at least a fifth of the book could have been trimmed. The Power Broker is a book that will highlight the reader’s sense of morality. I for one see the story as a prime example of why the powers of government need to be limited so that no one like Robert Moses can take advantage of them. Barack Obama said he read the book when he was 22 and it “mesmerized” him. Obama said, “I’m sure it helped to shape how I think about politics.” That statement is frightening to me. Some may see Moses’s life as a roadmap to their own power, cues to spot corrupt ambitions in others, or a few tricks of persuasion and leadership. Either way, a lot can be learned from reading it. And it's entirely worth the effort.