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Best Selling Books by Robert ARobert A is the author of The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (2002), The Power Broker (1974), Variable Star (2006), A Preface to Democratic Theory (1956), The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1997).
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The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein
release date: May 17, 2002
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.
release date: Sep 19, 2006
A Preface to Democratic Theory
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
release date: Jun 15, 1997
release date: Oct 01, 2001
The Triumph of Capitalism
release date: Dec 31, 2011
release date: May 01, 2012
release date: Oct 01, 2004
release date: Oct 05, 2021
release date: Jan 06, 2004
Have Space Suit, Will Travel
release date: Feb 08, 2005
The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820
release date: Jan 01, 1997
release date: Sep 01, 2001
Stranger in a Strange Land
release date: Oct 01, 1991
release date: Mar 31, 2008
release date: May 15, 2013
Judicial Process in America
release date: Jan 30, 2025
release date: Jan 10, 2011
A Preface to Democratic Theory, Expanded Edition
release date: Sep 15, 2006
release date: Jun 27, 2006
Democracy and Its Critics
release date: Oct 01, 2008
How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper
release date: Jun 30, 2022
release date: Sep 12, 2013
release date: Jan 01, 2005
Models for Innovation Diffusion
Salvation Accomplished by the Son
release date: Jun 17, 2024
release date: Oct 05, 2021
The Minutemen and Their World
release date: Apr 01, 2011
The Encyclodpedia of Old Fishing Lures
release date: May 01, 2011
The Encyclopedia of Old Fishing Lures
release date: May 10, 2011
Chronicle of the Living Christ
release date: Jan 01, 1996
Race and Schooling in the South, 1880-1950
release date: Dec 01, 2007
release date: Nov 24, 2020
release date: Apr 11, 2014
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