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Robert A. Caro on the means and ends of power
- smacktoward 8y ago> A biography of Al Smith is the one that I’m sorry I’m not going to get to do. The more you learn about Al Smith, the more you realize he is probably the most forgotten consequential figure in American history. Oh, man. A Caro biography of Al Smith would have been a fantastic project. I'm as sorry at not getting to read it as he is about not getting to write it.
- Spooky23 8y agoThe power broker does a good job at chalking out some of interesting things about Al Smith to help guide further reading. Smith, FDR and Johnson are great figures to help understand and why modern America is what it is.
- georgeecollins 8y agoIf you have never read the Power Broker, or say "Master of the Senate" (the 3rd LBJ book) and you have any interest in politics or American history.. well you should! So much of the discussion of the problems of the American city is informed by the Power Broker. Before that people I really don't think many people thought about it.
- Spooky23 8y agoThe Johnson books are really amazing looks into a uniquely American person. The Power Broker is amazing and overshadows the Johnson books. Robert Moses’s arc is like a real life Darth Vader. Johnson is...different the books made me uncomfortable, as LBJ is both loathsome and inspired, visionary and corrupt. It’s hard to like someone literally hiring folks to bring suitcases of corrupt money back to his home... but then again he was able to make civil rights a reality, in the face of the racist establishment that controlled the Senate.
- hackerbrother 8y agoYou have to read the first two also, of course! The second one includes a great sub-biography of Coke Stevenson, a former governor of Texas. LBJ beat him when he ran for senate by stealing and buying votes.
- jkuria 8y agoYep. The infamous ballot box number 13 determined the course of American history. Without that stolen box, LBJ would not have become a senator and would not therefore not have become president. His means to power were always corrupt (he stole elections at the student body president level and the congressmen assistants organization) but once he attained it, he was surprisingly effective. From electrification of the rural Texas Hill country from which he hailed to enacting legislation for the civil rights movement.
- bkohlmann 8y agoHistory may have been different but to say LBJ wouldn’t have found a way to power via the senate or even the presidency is impossible to say. He knew how to survive amidst setbacks...who knows what would’ve happened if he lost that race.
- georgeecollins 8y agoHaving read these books I think there are two ways to look at it. On one hand, in Means of Ascent you see how LBJ became a congressman against terrific odds by sheer force of will, brains, and excellent advisors / supporters. On the other hand, you see that later in life he either takes fewer risks or is more complacent by the time of the 1960 presidential campaign. The democratic nomination was his to lose, and if he had pushed for it he would have gotten it, not Kennedy. So if LBJ had lost that Senate race in 1948, which aspect of his character would dominate? What is so great about those books is how they reveal the complexity of an individual's character.
- aestetix 8y agoThe first 100 pages of that book (Master of the Senate) is the best history of the tensions of the US that I've ever read. At this point, if someone wants to discuss some of the more charged topics with me, I insist they read that first. On a similar note, I'd argue that if you read The Power Broker, you get a whole new level of understand of why New York City is the way it is.
- skookumchuck 8y agoI just ordered it! Looking forward to it.
- a_bonobo 8y agoAaron Swartz on The Power Broker: >I cannot possibly say enough good things about this book. Go read it. Right now. Yes, I know it’s long, but trust me, you’ll wish it was longer. I think it may be simply the best nonfiction book. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/books2009 http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/books2009 Also quoted in this longer article on transparency in government: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/transparencybunk http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/transparencybunk
- santix 8y agoI haven't read the book (yet), but I believe this talk is a good intro: https://www.c-span.org/video/?196682-1/the-power-broker https://www.c-span.org/video/?196682-1/the-power-broker
- sten 8y agoI picked up this book based on this quote from Aaron and absolutely struggled through it. Taking over a year to read completely. And then in the end, he was correct. I did wish there was more.
- dondawest 8y agoTHE POWER BROKER is one of the most fulfilling and detailed and well-researched books I have ever read in my life. Caro is the best biographer I have ever encountered on the page. The richness he puts into the history he tells is truly unbelievable. After reading that book I felt like I deeply knew — and hated - Tammany Hall, hahaha
- canes123456 8y agoI read his On Power book but it was such trash I avoided all his other books
- omilu 8y agoConan obrien is a huge Caro fan
- skookumchuck 8y agoAs I get older, I find I am reading more and more non-fiction and less and less fiction. I had a curious epiphany about it. I novel has a beginning, middle, and end. That's all there is to it. If you're a fan, there's nothing more. You can study it all you like, it's fruitless. You can see this with the Star Trek fans, all that interest and excitement pretty much goes nowhere. They wind up memorizing the scripts and doing cosplay. With non-fiction, there's no beginning and no end. There is always more to the story. There are details omitted. There's a bias. It's like a fractal, the closer you get, the more detail there is. Thus if you find it interesting, you can satisfy that itch for more. Caro's books are ones that satisfy the itchy person who wants to delve much deeper into a story than the usual insipid treatment. And if that isn't enough, Caro didn't include everything, there's always more for the next historian to unearth.
- spookybones 8y agoYeah Shakespeare and Homer’s works were one time reads. No depth! But let’s compare a non-fiction great work to genre fiction based on a TV show...
- skookumchuck 8y agoYou're never going to find out any more about Romeo or Juliet than the words in the play.
- qntty 8y agoIt's a mistake to think that Romeo and Juliet, or any fiction, is really just about the characters in the story. You might not learn more about Romeo or about Juliet but you can learn more about what people will do for love. You don't have to read fiction for this, you can learn it from psychological studies if you want.
- Retra 8y agoYes, I think that's the point. What fiction offers is less than what non-fiction offers.
- cm2012 8y agoThis is a really great interview.
- daltonlp 8y agoWilliam Manchester is about the only writer who comes near Robert Caro. If you liked The Power Broker, you may want to read his American Caesar, or The Arms of Krupp. The Private Life of Chairman Mao is another tremendous account of the excesses of power.