At times this is as much a study of power as of Robert Moses. Robert Moses is not someone familiar to most readers, but Caro’s biography carefully tracks each phase of his uniquely consequential life – his rise to power, the decades he spent exercising that power and his eventual fall. This biography starts off somewhat slowly but once it is running at full steam (after about two-hundred pages) it is almost inexplicably enthralling.

And given Caro’s knack for uncovering and piecing together various elements of his subject’s life, his background as an investigative reporter is hardly surprising. Readers familiar with Caro’s series on LBJ will find his writing style strikingly familiar: penetrating and potent but not particularly elegant and frequently dense but rarely dull. This 1,162-page book is hefty but engrossing, detailed but illuminating and unquestionably demands more patience and perseverance than most biographies. “The Power Broker” is notable both for what it is – a monumental investigative work and piercing exploration of a fascinating personality – and what it is not – an easy-to-digest narrative intended for the casual fan of great biography. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for the third volume (“ Master of the Senate”) and is currently working on the fifth – and presumably final – book in the series. Caro is best known for his ongoing series covering the life of Lyndon B. Published in 1974, “T he Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York” was Robert Caro’s first book – and earned him the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

Robert moses and the fall of new york