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 National
Book Award, the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy
of Arts and Letters, and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the
Society of American Historians to the book that best “exemplifies
the union of the historian and the artist.” In 2010 President
Barack Obama awarded Caro the National Humanities Medal, stating at
the time: “I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker
back when I was twenty-two years old and just being mesmerized, and
I’m sure it helped to shape how I think about politics.” In 2016 he
received the National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. The
London Sunday Times has said that Caro is “The greatest political
biographer of our times.”
Caro’s first book, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of
New York, everywhere acclaimed as a modern classic, was chosen by
the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books
of the twentieth century. It is, according to David
Halberstam, “Surely the greatest book ever written about a city.”
And The New York Times Book Review said: “In the future, the
scholar who writes the history of American cities in the twentieth
century will doubtless begin with this extraordinary
effort.”
The first volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, The Path to Power,
was cited by The Washington Post as “proof that we live in a great
age of biography . . . [a book] of radiant excellence . . . Caro’s
evocation of the Texas Hill Country, his elaboration of Johnson’s
unsleeping ambition, his understanding of how politics actually
work, are—let it be said flat out—at the summit of American
historical writing.” Professor Henry F. Graff of Columbia
University called the second volume, Means of Ascent, “brilliant.
No review does justice to the drama of the story Caro is telling,
which is nothing less than how present-day politics was born.” The
London Times hailed volume three, Master of the Senate, as “a
masterpiece . . . Robert Caro has written one of the truly great
political biographies of the modern age.” The Passage of Power,
volume four, has been called “Shakespearean . . . A breathtakingly
dramatic story [told] with consummate artistry and ardor” (The New
York Times) and “as absorbing as a political thriller . . . By
writing the best presidential biography the country has ever seen,
Caro has forever changed the way we think about, and read, American
history” (NPR). On the cover of The New York Times Book Review,
President Bill Clinton praised it as “Brilliant . . . Important . .
. Remarkable. With this fascinating and meticulous account Robert
Caro has once again done America a great service.”
“Caro has a unique place among American political biographers,” The
Boston Globe said . . . “He has become, in many ways, the standard
by which his fellows are measured.” And Nicholas von Hoffman wrote:
“Caro has changed the art of political biography.”
Born and raised in New York City, Caro graduated from Princeton
University, was later a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and
worked for six years as an investigative reporter for Newsday. He
lives in New York City with his wife, Ina, the historian and
writer.
"Thrilling. Caro burns into the reader's imagination the story of
the [1948 Senate] election. Never has it been told so dramatically,
with breathtaking detail piled on incredible development . . . In
The Path to Power, Volume I of his monumental biography, Robert A.
Caro ignited a blowtorch whose bright flame illuminated Johnson's
early career. In Means of Ascent he intensifies the flame to a
brilliant blue point." —Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York
Times
"Brilliant. No brief review does justice to the drama of the story
Caro is telling, which is nothing less than how present-day
politics was born." —Henry F. Graff, Professor of History, Columbia
University
"Caro has a unique place among American political biographers. He
has become, in many ways, the standard by which his fellows are
measured. Caro's diligence [and] ambition are phenomenal . . . A
remarkable story . . . Epic." —Mark Feeney, Boston Sunday Globe
"Immensely engrossing . . . Caro is an indefatigable investigative
reporter and a skillful historian who can make the most abstract
material come vibrantly to life. [He has a] marvelous ability to
tell a story . . . His analysis of how power is used—to build
highways and dams, to win elections, to get rich—is masterly."
—Ronald Steel, The New York Times Book Review
"Caro has changed the art of political biography." —Nicholas von
Hoffman
"A spellbinding, hypnotic journey into the political life and times
of Lyndon Johnson. Riveting drama." —Jim Finley, Los Angeles
Times
"The most compelling study of American political power and
corruption since Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men . . . It
is nothing less than a political epic, the definitive account of a
watershed election, rich with all of the intrigue and drama that
have become the stuff of legend. [It has] the suspense of a
political thriller." —Steve Neal, Fort Worth Star Telegram
"Magnificent . . . Thunder and lightning rip through Mr. Caro's
viscerally compelling work." —Thomas W. Hazlett, The Wall
Street Journal
"A brilliant but disturbing book . . . A devastating study that
warrants the broadest readership. He reminds us that Americans need
to be vigilant in upholding their highest standards of ethics and
good government." —Guy Halverson, The Chistian Science
Monitor
"His research is dazzlingly exhaustive, his gripping story is
enhanced by excellent writing, and his findings [seem] largely
irrefutable. No one has done a better job of researching [the 1948
race] than Mr. Caro. He has produced a portrait not only of Lyndon
Johnson, but also of the politics and values of mid-century
America." —Philip Seib, Dallas Morning News
"Robert Caro gives us an LBJ who was human and then some, and
what's enthralling is how this lucid, fascinating book keeps
forcing us to confront the extreme contradictions of what (on good
days) we call human nature. It's a testament to Robert Caro's skill
that we find it so difficult to get a firm moral fix on Johnson.
Caro is that rare biographer who seems intrigued by his subject but
happily free from the urge to either heroicize, psychologize—or
excoriate and punish." —Francine Prose, 7 Days
"Means of Ascent is a political biography, a detective story, a
western and a character study. Above all, it is a richly textured,
multilayered chronicle of a fundamental social and political change
and how this change highlighted elements of Mr. Johnson's
character: his powerful needs, tremendous ambition and particular
genius." —Robert A. Kronley, The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution
"One can trust every detail. The sagaciousness and discretion of
Caro's investigations are obvious from the start. The story of that
election has all the excitement of a murder mystery in which the
culprit is known, but the question is whether justice will triumph.
Caro tells it with the same thriller instinct as the old novelists,
yet with the passion for accuracy of the most exacting detective."
—Denis Wadley, Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune
"A great book, and I believe the completed biography will be the
great book about American politics in the twentieth century. The
story of the '48 election is remarkable, unique. If it weren't a
cliche, I'd say it has Tolstoyan epic grandeur." —Robert K.
Massie
"Riveting . . . Explosive . . . Readers are in for a white-knuckle,
hair-raising tale that could have ended in any of a dozen ways,
with L.B.J. in the White House the longest shot of all. This is
good history. Caro's treatment achieves poetic
intensity." —Paul Gray, Time
"Caro's writing summons a reviewer's cliches—gripping, compelling,
absorbing, irresistible . . . unputdownable. The sentences sparkle.
The details pile up in a mountain of evidence . . . Caro has at
last set the record straight." —Richard Marius, Harvard
Magazine
"Extraordinary and brilliant . . . Devastatingly persuasive . . .
Caro's prodigious research, and his discovery of original sources
ignored by other biographers, proves beyond doubt that much of what
Johnson said about these years was false . . . The spadework
combined with Caro's passion makes for drama more riveting than any
novel." —Mark A. Gamin, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Caro is the premier biographer of our time." —Bernard D. Nossiter,
The Progressive
"No one understands Lyndon Baines Johnson without reading Robert A.
Caro." —James F. Vesely, Sacramento Union
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