9780394720241 - The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Urban studies & biography) von Caro, Robert A. (8 Ergebnisse)

Zustand: New. For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, ROBERT A. CARO has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, has three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has also won virtually every other major literary honor, including the Nat.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - PULITZER PRIZE WINNER A modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York. One of the Modern Library s hundred greatest books of the twentieth century, Robert Caro's monumental book makes public what few outsiders knew: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York. And in telling the Moses story, Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happens the way things really get done in America's City Halls and Statehouses and brings to light a bonanza of vital information about such national figures as Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud), about Fiorello La Guardia, John V. Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller. But The Power Broker is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a man an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives. We see how Moses began: the handsome, intellectual young heir to the world of Our Crowd, an idealist. How, rebuffed by the entrenched political establishment, he fought for the power to accomplish his ideals. How he first created a miraculous flowering of parks and parkways, playlands and beaches and then ultimately brought down on the city the smog-choked aridity of our urban landscape, the endless miles of (never sufficient) highway, the hopeless sprawl of Long Island, the massive failures of public housing, and countless other barriers to humane living. How, inevitably, the accumulation of power became an end in itself. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He was held in fear his dossiers could disgorge the dark secret of anyone who opposed him. He was, he claimed, above politics, above deals; and through decade after decade, the newspapers and the public believed. Meanwhile, he was developing his public authorities into a fourth branch of government known as 'Triborough' a government whose records were closed to the public, whose policies and plans were decided not by voters or elected officials but solely by Moses an immense economic force directing pressure on labor unions, on banks, on all the city's political and economic institutions, and on the press, and on the Church. He doled out millions of dollars' worth of legal fees, insurance commissions, lucrative contracts on the basis of who could best pay him back in the only coin he coveted: power. He dominated the politics and politicians of his time without ever having been elected to any office. He was, in essence, above our democratic system. Robert Moses held power in the state for 44 years, through the governorships of Smith, Roosevelt, Lehman, Dewey, Harriman and Rockefeller, and in the city for 34 years, through the mayoralties of La Guardia, O'Dwyer, Impellitteri, Wagner and Lindsay, He personally conceived and carried through public works costing 27 billion dollars he was undoubtedly America's greatest builder. This is how he built and dominated New York before, finally, he was stripped of his reputation (by the press) and his power (by Nelson Rockefeller). But his work, and his will, had been done.

Zustand: New. In.

Paperback. Zustand: Brand New. 1344 pages. 9.25x6.00x2.00 inches. In Stock.

Paperback. Zustand: Brand New. 1344 pages. 9.25x6.00x2.00 inches. In Stock.

Paperback. Zustand: Brand New. 1344 pages. 9.25x6.00x2.00 inches. In Stock.

Paperback. Zustand: Brand New. 1344 pages. 9.25x6.00x2.00 inches. In Stock.

Softcover. Thick softcover, section of maps at front, 1246 pp. plus xxxiv page index. Illustrated with three sections of photographs. Near fine, minimal wear at the tips. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and named one of the 100 greatest non-fiction books of the 20trh century. One of the essential history works, the in depth study of New York City urban planner and power broker of the and one of the most influential men in the history of New York City and its suburbs, Robert Moses (1888-1981). Never elected to any office, Mosed had a four decade career during which he held as many as twelve municipal and regional titles, including New York Department of Parks and Recreation Commissioner (1934-1960) and Long Island State Park Commission chairman 1924-1963). He created and chaired the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (1934-1968). It was at Moses' direction that most of the parkways and major highways leading to and from the City were created, resulting in the mass exodus of city dwellers to the suburbs of Long Island (the Northern, Southern and Meadowbrook State Parkways) , Westchester (the Taconic State Parkway), southern Connecticut and the outer boroughs (Triborough Bridge,.Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and Queens- Midtown Tunnel). He also created Jones Beach State Park on Long Island and oversaw the building of the`1939 World's Fair. Until the early 1960s, Moses was rarely thwarted in his planning though often (and sometimes vociferously) groups would protest the destruction of entire neighborhood in order to run expressways to the suburbs. (Depending on who is telling the story, he was also the person most directly responsible for the Brooklyn Dodgers leaving for Los Angeles when he tried the force a new stadium ofr them to be built in Queens on the former World's Fair site.).