The Power Broker
Robert Caro's biography examines Robert Moses, who, without ever winning election, became the most powerful builder in the history of New York. Over more than forty years, Moses created parks, bridges, highways, and public works that transformed the city and state, while also displacing hundreds of thousands of residents and shaping policy through a web of public authorities. Caro traces how Moses gathered and held power, and how that power corrupted his early idealism. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1975, the book is celebrated for its depth, reporting, and analysis of how unaccountable power operates in a democracy. It remains a standard for political biography and a guide to how cities are shaped by the people who control money and process behind the scenes.
What you might want to know about The Power Broker
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A monumental biography of Robert Moses, the unelected official who reshaped New York with parks, highways, and power.
Yes. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1975.
Robert Moses, the unelected official whose public works and political maneuvering reshaped New York for decades.
The Power Broker was written by Robert Caro, published in 1974 by Penguin Random House.
The Power Broker is 1312 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Power Broker takes most readers 20 to 28 hours to finish.
The Power Broker is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.