Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Power Broker : Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro ISBN: 0-394-72024-5 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 July, 1975 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (72 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Brilliant, but imbalanced
Comment:
Although this book is over 1300 pages, Caro does an extraordinary job chronicling the life of Robert Moses. This book is a real page turner and you can't help but be inspired and repulsed by what Robert Moses did.
This book's main flaw is its relentlessly negative view of Robert Moses. It is true that Moses permanently altered the relationship between New York City and the suburbs. He destroyed vital neighborhoods and undermined the stability of surrounding areas. However, it is a mistake to say (as Caro does) that Moses was the sole cause of what happened afterwards. Suburbanization (and urban renewal, but that's another topic!) after the Second World War was encouraged by all levels of government. To put it another way, if Moses hadn't built the highways (and cleared the "slums"), someone else would have.
In reality, the long-term stability of American cities was undermined by VA mortgages (often cheaper than renting), red lining, cheap oil and the interstate highways. Common wisdom says that the race riots "caused" suburbanization. The truth is that suburbanization was already far advanced in 1965; the riots merely sped up the process. Incidentally, 1965 was the year of the Watts riots, the first major urban disturbance in the 1960s.
Despite the anti-Moses bias of this book, I'm still giving it four stars because it is such a good read! For a more detailed examination of New York's problems in the late 20th Century, I suggest "Geography of Nowhere" by James Howard Kunstler, "The Ungovernable City" by Vincent Cannato, "The Assassination of New York" by Robert Fitch, and the 1961 classic "The Life and Death of American Cities" by Jane Jacobs.
Rating: 5
Summary: Simply the best
Comment: One could go on and on about this book. Simply stated, it's the best non-fiction book of the 20th Century. It's a must read for anyone interested in American civilization.
Rating: 5
Summary: Now I understand....
Comment: My only regret after having read this tome is that I didn't read it 5 years earlier when I moved to the Metro NY area. As well as being an excellent biography, The Power Broker offers the key to seeing and understanding why the region is like it is and how it got that way.
This is still undoubtedly a magnificent book and 28 years after its original publication, still well worth the effort to read it.
I would have preferred to see a little more on the social and historical context of the times which, I suspect, might add some shading to Caro's stark assessment of Moses. (e.g. most US cities ended up "road-heavy, mass transit-light", but they didn't have Robert Moses; I suspect he may have reflected his times as well as shaping them)
Having finished the book, and in discussion with a friend in the Metro Transportation Authority I made the comment that Moses' influence had waned completely by the time he died in 1981. "Oh, Robert Moses isn't dead" was his reply. As I drove back to my suburban home along an RM creation at a pace no faster than an arthritic snail, I understood his reply.
 |
Title: Master of the Senate : The Years of LBJ, Vol. III by Robert A. Caro ISBN: 0394720954 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 25 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1) by Robert A. Caro ISBN: 0679729453 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 17 February, 1990 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
 |
Title: Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 2) by Robert A. Caro ISBN: 067973371X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 06 March, 1991 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
 |
Title: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs ISBN: 067974195X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920 by Timothy J. Gilfoyle ISBN: 0393311082 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: March, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
