cover of episode 'Book Review': Robert Caro on 50 Years of 'The Power Broker'

'Book Review': Robert Caro on 50 Years of 'The Power Broker'

2024/9/22
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Robert Caro discusses the enduring legacy of "The Power Broker," his biography of Robert Moses, highlighting Moses's unchecked power over New York City's development for decades despite never being elected.
  • Robert Moses held power for 44 years without being elected.
  • "The Power Broker" explores the nature of Moses's influence.
  • Moses significantly shaped New York City and its surrounding suburbs.

Shownotes Transcript

Robert Caro’s 1974 biography “The Power Broker” is a book befitting its subject, Robert Moses — the unelected parochial technocrat who used a series of appointed positions to entirely reshape New York City and its surrounding environment for generations to come. Like Moses, Caro’s book has exerted an enduring and outsize influence. Caro recently joined The Times’s Book Review Podcast to discuss his experience writing the seminal book, and how he accounts for its continuing legacy.

You can find more information about that episode here).