The Power Broker facts for kids
Cover art of The Power Broker since publication
|
|
| Author | Robert Caro |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Robert Moses |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | Knopf |
|
Publication date
|
1974 |
| Media type | Hardback, Paperback |
| Pages | 1,336 |
| ISBN | 0-394-72024-5 |
| OCLC | 1631862 |
| 974.7/04/0924 B | |
| LC Class | NA9085.M68 C37 1975 |
The Power Broker is a famous book written by Robert Caro in 1974. It tells the life story of Robert Moses. The book shows how Robert Moses gained and used a lot of power in New York City and state politics. He held many important jobs that people didn't vote for him to have. From these jobs, he planned and built many highways and bridges. Sometimes, these projects changed neighborhoods a lot.
Many people consider The Power Broker one of the best biographies of the 20th century. It has greatly influenced how city planners and politicians think about their work. The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974, which is a very important award for books.
Contents
Robert Moses's Story
The Power Broker starts by looking at Moses's childhood in Connecticut. It then follows his early years as a young man who wanted to make things better. He believed in Progressivism, which was a movement to fix problems in society. He wanted to improve the city's civil service system, which is how government jobs are given out. He thought it was unfair and corrupt.
How Moses Gained Power
According to the book, Moses learned how to get and use power from his early experiences. He worked for future New York Mayor Jimmy Walker and Governor Al Smith. These jobs taught him how to achieve his goals in politics.
By the 1930s, Moses became known for building public parks across New York. He also created big projects like the Triborough Bridge. This bridge was later renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. However, to get these things done, he sometimes found ways around the rules. He also created new ways to gain political power. This was seen in his work with New York's public authorities. These are special groups that manage public services.
His Impact on New York
The book shows Moses as a government worker who was appointed, not elected. But because he was so good at getting large construction projects finished, he gained a huge amount of power. Many elected officials, who were supposed to be in charge of him, actually depended on him.
Moses always preferred cars and highways over public transportation like buses and subways. He also often put building projects ahead of what people and communities needed. He often said he worked without pay in many of his public jobs. However, he lived a very rich life and helped others who supported him get rich too.
A Complex Leader
Robert Caro, the author, praises Moses for being very smart and good at politics. He also notes Moses's strong speaking skills and his hands-on way of managing projects. Caro gives Moses full credit for his early achievements. However, the book shows a mixed view of Moses, highlighting both his good and bad sides.
The book is very long, with 1,336 pages. It provides many facts and details to support its claims. Robert Moses and his supporters tried to say that some of the information in the book was wrong.
How the Book Was Written
Robert Caro was a reporter for a newspaper called Newsday in the early 1960s. He wrote many articles about a plan to build a bridge across Long Island Sound. This bridge would go from Rye to Oyster Bay. Robert Moses strongly supported this bridge.
A Reporter's Discovery
Caro believed the bridge was a bad idea. For example, its piers would be so big they could change the ocean's tidal flow. Caro thought his articles had convinced even the powerful governor, Nelson Rockefeller, to rethink the plan. But then, the state's Assembly voted to move forward with the bridge.
Caro later said this moment changed his life. He realized that power in a democracy doesn't always come from voting. He saw that Moses, who had never been elected, had enough power to change the whole state. Caro wanted to understand how Moses got this power.
The Idea for the Book
In 1966, Caro's wife, Ina Caro, started writing her graduate paper about the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. At the same time, Caro was studying urban planning and land use at Harvard University. He noticed that what he learned in class about planning highways was different from what he saw as a reporter.
Caro realized that highways weren't built just because of traffic numbers. He felt they were built because Robert Moses wanted them there. He decided he needed to explain to people where Moses got his power. If he didn't, he felt his work would not be honest.
Researching Robert Moses
Caro found that even though Moses had a very important career, no one had written a full biography about him. There was only one book from 1952, which was more like propaganda. So, Caro decided to write the book himself. He spent seven years on the project. He did hundreds of interviews and looked through many old documents and records.
At first, Caro thought the book would only take nine months to write. But as the years passed, he ran out of money. He worried he would never finish. His wife, Ina, who also helped with the research, sold their family home. They moved to an apartment in the Bronx where she had a teaching job. This allowed Caro to keep working on the book.
Challenges and Completion
Moses tried his best to stop this book from being written. He had successfully stopped many other biographies before. After Caro had worked on the book for over a year, Moses agreed to seven interviews. One interview lasted all day. This gave Caro a lot of information about Moses's early life.
However, when Caro started asking harder questions, the interviews suddenly stopped. Caro had interviewed other people and looked at secret records. He needed to understand why what Moses told him was sometimes very different from what others said.
Caro's first draft of the book was very, very long. His editor, Robert Gottlieb, told him it was too long to publish as one book. Caro asked about splitting it into two books. But Gottlieb said people might be interested in Robert Moses once, but not twice. So, Caro had to spend months cutting down his manuscript to make it shorter.
See also
In Spanish: The Power Broker para niños
