In 1974 Robert Caro won the Pulitzer Prize for his massive biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker. I still have the hardcover copy I bought a year later. It's an epic tale of a 1920s progressive who ended up building highways for the sake of building highways and using his influence to cripple or kill public transit across America while urging the feds to jam interstates through the downtowns of cities.
After that Caro announced he would essay the life of President Lyndon Johnson.
38 years later he is still at it. As another massive volume is about to drop (The Duke of Gloucester greeted the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire's author with, "Another damned thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?"), the event is triggered the required wave of promo articles.
But Caro is so unique among biographers, they make good, even excellent, reading. Esquire's is here. The New York Times Magazine's, here.
After that Caro announced he would essay the life of President Lyndon Johnson.
38 years later he is still at it. As another massive volume is about to drop (The Duke of Gloucester greeted the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire's author with, "Another damned thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?"), the event is triggered the required wave of promo articles.
But Caro is so unique among biographers, they make good, even excellent, reading. Esquire's is here. The New York Times Magazine's, here.
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