The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
"Surely the greatest book ever written about a city."  --David Halberstam"A masterpiece   of American reporting. It's more than the story of a tragic figure or the exploration   of the unknown politics of our time. It's an elegantly written and enthralling work   of art." --Theodore H. White"The most absorbing, detailed, instructive, provocative   book ever published about the making and raping of modern New York City and environs   and the man who did it, about the hidden plumbing of New York City and State politics   over the last half-century, about the force of personality and the nature of political   power in a democracy. A monumental work, a political biography and political history   of the first magnitude." --Eliot Fremont-Smith,New York"One of the most exciting,   un-put-downable books I have ever read. This is definitive biography, urban history,   and investigative journalism. This is a study of the corruption which power exerts   on those who wield it to set beside Tacitus and his emperors, Shakespeare and his   kings." --Daniel Berger,Baltimore Evening Sun"Fascinating, every oversize page   of it."  --Peter S. Prescott,Newsweek"A study of municipal power that will change   the way any reader of the book hereafter peruses his newspaper."  --Philip Herrera,Time"A triumph, brilliant and totally fascinating. A majestic, even Shakespearean,   drama about the interplay of power and personality."  --Justin Kaplan"In the future,   the scholar who writes the history of American cities in the twentieth century will   doubtless begin with this extraordinary effort." --Richard C. Wade,The New York   Times Book Review"The feverish hype that dominates the merchandising of arts and   letters in America has so debased the language that, when a truly exceptional achievement   comes along, there are no words left to praise it. Important, awesome, compelling--these   no longer summon the full flourish of trumpets this book deserves. It is extraordinary   on many levels and certain to endure." --William Greider,The Washington Post Book   World"Apart from the book's being so good as biography, as city history, as sheer   good reading,The Power Brokeris an immense public service." --Jane Jacobs"Required   reading for all those who hope to make their way in urban politics; for the reformer,   the planner, the politician and even the ward heeler." --Jules L. Wagman,Cleveland   Press"An extraordinary study of the workings of power, individually, institutionally, politically, and economically in our republic." --Edmund Fuller,The Wall Street Journal"Caro has written one of the finest, best-researched and most analytically informative descriptions of our political and governmental processes to appear in a generation." --Nicholas Von Hoffman,The Washington Post "Caro's achievement is staggering. The most unlikely subjects--banking, ward politics, construction, traffic management, state financing, insurance companies, labor unions, bridge building--become alive and contemporary. It is cheap at the price and too short by half. A milestone in literary and publishing history." --Donald R. Morris,The Houston Post"Irresistible reading. It is like one of the great Russian novels, overflowing with characters and incidents that all fit into a vast mosaic of plot and counterplot. Only this is no novel. This is a college education in power corruption." --George McCue,St. Louis Post-Dispatch From the Trade Paperback edition.