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spoko

spoko

Currently reading

The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia
David E. Hoffman
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov, Diana Burgin, Katherine Tiernan O'Connor
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
Arun Gandhi, Marshall B. Rosenberg
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
Eric Metaxas, Timothy Keller
Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63
Taylor Branch
The Path to Power
Robert A. Caro
The Nature of Nebraska: Ecology and Biodiversity
Paul A. Johnsgard
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
Robin D.G. Kelley
Cutting for Stone
Abraham Verghese
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York - Robert A. Caro

The Power Broker is a great book, obviously representing a ton of research, and giving a very detailed view of its subject's rise and fall. It's a complicated, intricately woven history, and Caro walks his reader carefully through it, examining virtually every detail. You come away with a real understanding of the various ways that a man like Robert Moses can turn influence into power, and power into greater power still. (You also come away with a spectacular understanding of the author's incredible disdain for Moses himself.) You are also given numerous opportunities to marvel at the ways in which an intelligent, forceful, remorseless man can dominate an entire city.

 

That said, this is the first time I ever wished I had read the abridged version of a book. Not every one of this story's threads deserved quite the level of examination it received. It's worth reading, to be sure. But it could have been more so, if reading it weren't quite this much of an investment.