The Power Broker.

CARO, Robert A.

Item Number: 1873

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

First edition of the author’s Pulitzer-Prize winning work on Robert Moses. Thick octavo, original black cloth. Signed by the author on the half-title page, who has added the last line of this work, “Why weren’t they grateful? With best wishes Robert A. Caro”. Additionally signed again on the title page. Fine in an excellent near fine dust jacket. A nice copy of a bulky title that is seldom seen in this condition.

One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes, the Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today. "Surely the greatest book ever written about a city." (David Halberstam) Theodore H. White called it "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."