{"product_id":"the-power-broker-pulitzer-prize-winner-robert-moses-and-the-fall-of-new-york-9780394480763","title":"The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York","description":"\u003cp\u003ePULITZER PRIZE WINNER  A modern American classic  this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one mans incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York.  One of the Modern Librarys hundred greatest books of the twentieth century  Robert Caros monumental book makes public what few outsiders knew: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York. And in telling the Moses story  Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happensthe way things really get done in Americas City Halls and Statehousesand brings to light a bonanza of vital information about such national figures as Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud)  about Fiorello La Guardia  John V. Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller.  But The Power Broker is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a manan extraordinary man who  denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process  stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives. We see how Moses began: the handsome  intellectual young heir to the world of Our Crowd  an idealist. How  rebuffed by the entrenched political establishment  he fought for the power to accomplish his ideals. How he first created a miraculous flowering of parks and parkways  playlands and beachesand then ultimately brought down on the city the smog-choked aridity of our urban landscape  the endless miles of (never sufficient) highway  the hopeless sprawl of Long Island  the massive failures of public housing  and countless other barriers to humane living. How  inevitably  the accumulation of power became an end in itself.  Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He was held in fearhis dossiers could disgorge the dark secret of anyone who opposed him. He was  he claimed  above politics  above deals; and through decade after decade  the newspapers and the public believed. Meanwhile  he was developing his public authorities into a fourth branch of government known as \"Triborough\"a government whose records were closed to the public  whose policies and plans were decided not by voters or elected officials but solely by Mosesan immense economic force directing pressure on labor unions  on banks  on all the citys political and economic institutions  and on the press  and on the Church. He doled out millions of dollars worth of legal fees  insurance commissions  lucrative contracts on the basis of who could best pay him back in the only coin he coveted: power. He dominated the politics and politicians of his timewithout ever having been elected to any office. He was  in essence  above our democratic system.  Robert Moses held power in the state for 44 years  through the governorships of Smith  Roosevelt  Lehman  Dewey  Harriman and Rockefeller  and in the city for 34 years  through the mayoralties of La Guardia  ODwyer  Impellitteri  Wagner and Lindsay  He personally conceived and carried through public works costing 27 billion dollarshe was undoubtedly Americas greatest builder.  This is how he built and dominated New Yorkbefore  finally  he was stripped of his reputation (by the press) and his power (by Nelson Rockefeller). But his work  and his will  had been done.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45666321072181,"sku":"ByrdShop_0394480767","price":93.88,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780394480763.jpg?v=1782428085","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-power-broker-pulitzer-prize-winner-robert-moses-and-the-fall-of-new-york-9780394480763","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}