Robert A. Caro
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Robert Allan Caro (born October 30, 1935) is an American journalist and author known for his biographies of United States political figures
Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...
and Lyndon B. Johnson. After working for many years as a reporter, Caro wrote ''
The Power Broker ''The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York'' is a 1974 biography of Robert Moses by Robert Caro. The book focuses on the creation and use of power in New York local and state politics, as witnessed through Moses' use of unelected ...
'' (1974), a biography of New York urban planner
Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...
, which was chosen by the
Modern Library The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became an ...
as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century. He has since written four of a planned five volumes of ''
The Years of Lyndon Johnson ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson'' is a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson by the American writer Robert Caro. Four volumes have been published, running to more than 3,000 pages in total, detailing Johnson's early life, education, and political career. A ...
'' (1982, 1990, 2002, 2012), a biography of the former president. Consequentially, he has been described as "the most influential biographer of the last century." For his biographies, he has won two Pulitzer Prizes in Biography, two National Book Awards (including one for Lifetime Achievement), the Francis Parkman Prize (awarded by the
Society of American Historians The Society of American Historians, founded in 1939, encourages and honors literary distinction in the writing of history and biography about American topics. The approximately 300 members include professional historians, independent scholars, jou ...
to the book that "best exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist"), three National Book Critics Circle Awards, the Mencken Award for Best Book, the Carr P. Collins Award from the Texas Institute of Letters, the
D. B. Hardeman Prize The D. B. Hardeman Prize is a cash prize awarded annually by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation for the best book that furthers the study of the U.S. Congress in the fields of biography, history, journalism, or political science. Submissions are j ...
, and a Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2010 President Barack Obama awarded Caro the National Humanities Medal. Due to Caro's reputation for exhaustive research and detail, he is sometimes invoked by reviewers of other writers who are called "Caro-esque" for their own extensive research.


Life and career

Caro was born in New York City, the son of Jewish parents Celia (née Mendelow), also born in New York, and Benjamin Caro, born in
Warsaw, Poland Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-cen ...
. He grew up on Central Park West at 94th Street. His father, a businessman, spoke
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
as well as English, but he didn't speak either very often. He was 'very silent,' Caro said, and became more so after Caro's mother died, after a long illness, when Robert was 12. It was his mother's deathbed wish that he should go to the Horace Mann School, an exclusive private school in the Riverdale section of The Bronx. As a student there, Caro translated an edition of his school newspaper into Russian and mailed 10,000 copies to students in the USSR. Graduated in 1953, he went on to Princeton University, where he majored in English. He became managing editor of '' The Daily Princetonian'', second to Johnny Apple, later a prominent editor at '' The New York Times''. His writings, both in class and out, had been lengthy since his years at Horace Mann. A short story he wrote for '' The Princeton Tiger'', the school's humor magazine, took up almost an entire issue. His 235-page long
senior thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
on existentialism in Hemingway, titled "Heading Out: A Study of the Development of Ernest Hemingway's Thought", was so long, Caro claims, that the university's English department subsequently established a maximum length for senior theses by its students. He graduated ''cum laude'' in 1957. According to a 2012 '' The New York Times Magazine'' profile, "Caro said he now thinks that Princeton, which he chose because of its parties, was one of his mistakes, and that he should have gone to
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. Princeton in the mid-1950s was hardly known for being hospitable towards the Jewish community, and though Caro says he did not personally suffer from
anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
, he saw plenty of students who did." He had a sports column in the ''Princetonian'' and also wrote for the ''
Princeton Tiger ''Princeton Tiger'' or ''Tiger Magazine'' is the second oldest college humor magazine in the United States, published by Princeton University undergraduates since 1882. It is best known for giving the start to literary and artistic talent as wid ...
'' humor magazine. Caro began his professional career as a reporter with the ''New Brunswick Daily Home News'' (now merged into the '' Home News Tribune'') in New Jersey. He took a brief leave to work as a publicist for the Middlesex County
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...
. He left politics after an incident where he was accompanying the party chair to polling places on election day. A police officer reported to the party chair that some African Americans Caro saw being loaded into a police van, under arrest, were poll watchers who "had been giving them some trouble." Caro left politics right there. "I still think about it," he recalled in the 2012 ''Times Magazine'' profile. "It wasn't the roughness of the police that made such an impression. It was themeekness isn't the right wordthe acceptance of those people of what was happening." After briefly enrolling in the English doctoral program at Rutgers University (where he served as a teaching assistant), he went on to six years as an investigative reporter with the
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
newspaper ''
Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
''. One of the articles he wrote was a long series about why a proposed bridge across
Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...
from
Rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to both wheat (''Triticum'') and barley (genus ''Hordeum''). Rye grain is u ...
to Oyster Bay, championed by
Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...
, would have been inadvisable, requiring piers so large it would disrupt tidal flows in the sound, among other problems. Caro believed that his work had influenced even the state's powerful governor
Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...
to reconsider the idea, until he saw the state's
Assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
vote overwhelmingly to pass a preliminary measure for the bridge. "That was one of the transformational moments of my life," Caro said years later. It led him to think about Moses for the first time. "I got in the car and drove home to Long Island, and I kept thinking to myself: 'Everything you've been doing is baloney. You've been writing under the belief that power in a democracy comes from the ballot box. But here's a guy who has never been elected to anything, who has enough power to turn the entire state around, and you don't have the slightest idea how he got it.'" Caro gave a speech to introduce Senator Ted Kennedy on the second day of the
2004 Democratic National Convention The 2004 Democratic National Convention convened from July 26 to 29, 2004 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston, Massachusetts, and nominated Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts for president and Senator John Edwards from North Car ...
.


Work


''The Power Broker''

Caro spent the academic year of 1965–1966 as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. During a class on urban planning and land use, the experience of watching Moses returned to him. To do so, Caro began work on a biography of Moses, ''
The Power Broker ''The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York'' is a 1974 biography of Robert Moses by Robert Caro. The book focuses on the creation and use of power in New York local and state politics, as witnessed through Moses' use of unelected ...
: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York'', also a study of Caro's favorite theme: the acquisition and use of power. He expected it would take nine months to complete, but instead it took him until 1974. The work was based on extensive research and 522 interviews, including seven interviews with Moses himself, several with Michael Madigan (who worked for Moses for 35 years); and numerous interviews with Sidney Shapiro (Moses's general manager for forty years); as well as interviews with men who worked for and knew Moses's mentor, New York Governor
Al Smith Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928. The son of an Irish-American mother and a C ...
. During the 1967–1968 academic year, Caro worked on the book as a Carnegie Fellow at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His wife, Ina, functioned as his research assistant. Her master's thesis on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge stemmed from this work. At one point she sold the family home and took a teaching job so Robert would be financially able to finish the book. ''The Power Broker'' is widely viewed as a seminal work because it combined painstaking historical research with a smoothly flowing narrative writing style. The success of this approach was evident in his chapter on the construction of the
Cross-Bronx Expressway The Cross Bronx Expressway is a major freeway in the New York City borough of the Bronx. It is mainly designated as part of Interstate 95 in New York, Interstate 95 (I-95), but also includes portions of Interstate 295 (New York), I-295 and U. ...
, where Caro reported the controversy from all perspectives, including that of neighborhood residents. The result was a work of powerful literary as well as academic interest. Upon its publication, Moses responded to the biography in a 23-page statement.


''The Years of Lyndon Johnson''

Following ''The Power Broker'', Caro turned his attention to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Caro retraced Johnson's life by temporarily moving to rural Texas and Washington, D.C., in order to better understand Johnson's upbringing and to interview anyone who had known Johnson. The work, entitled ''
The Years of Lyndon Johnson ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson'' is a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson by the American writer Robert Caro. Four volumes have been published, running to more than 3,000 pages in total, detailing Johnson's early life, education, and political career. A ...
'', was originally intended as a trilogy, but is projected to encompass five volumes: # '' The Path to Power'' (1982) covers Johnson's life up to his failed 1941 campaign for the United States Senate. # '' Means of Ascent'' (1990) commences in the aftermath of that defeat and continues through his election to that office in 1948. # ''
Master of the Senate ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson'' is a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson by the American writer Robert Caro. Four volumes have been published, running to more than 3,000 pages in total, detailing Johnson's early life, education, and political career. ...
'' (2002) chronicles Johnson's rapid ascent and rule as Senate Majority Leader. # ''
The Passage of Power ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson'' is a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson by the American writer Robert Caro. Four volumes have been published, running to more than 3,000 pages in total, detailing Johnson's early life, education, and political career. A ...
'' (2012) details the 1960 election, LBJ's life as vice president, the
JFK assassination John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
and his first days as president. # One as-of-yet unpublished final volume. In November 2011, Caro announced that the full project had expanded to five volumes with the fifth requiring another two to three years to write. It will cover Johnson and Vietnam, the Great Society and civil rights era, his decision not to run in 1968, and eventual retirement. As of January 2020, Caro had completed 600 typed manuscript pages and was working on a section relating to the passage of Medicare in 1965. In a 2017 interview, Caro expressed his intent to embark shortly on a research trip to Vietnam. In an interview with '' The New York Review of Books'' in January 2018, Caro indicated he did not know when the book would be finished, mentioning anywhere from two to ten years. Caro's books portray Johnson as a complex and contradictory character: at the same time a scheming opportunist and visionary progressive. Caro argues, for example, that Johnson's victory in the 1948 runoff for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate was only achieved through extensive fraud and
ballot box stuffing Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
, although this is set in the practices of the time and in the context of Johnson's previous defeat in his 1941 race for the Senate, the victim of exactly similar chicanery. Caro also highlighted some of Johnson's campaign contributions, such as those from the Texas construction firm Brown and Root; in 1962 the company was acquired by another Texas firm, Halliburton, which became a major contractor in the Vietnam War. In addition, Caro argued that Johnson was awarded the
Silver Star The Silver Star Medal (SSM) is the United States Armed Forces' third-highest military decoration for valor in combat. The Silver Star Medal is awarded primarily to members of the United States Armed Forces for gallantry in action against an e ...
in World War II for political as well as military reasons, and that he later lied to journalists and the public about the circumstances for which it was awarded. Caro's portrayal of Johnson also notes his struggles on behalf of
progressive Progressive may refer to: Politics * Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform ** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context * Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...
causes such as the Voting Rights Act, and his consummate skill in getting this enacted in spite of intense opposition from Southern Democrats. Among sources close to the late president, Johnson's widow Lady Bird Johnson "spoke to aroseveral times and then abruptly stopped without giving a reason, and Bill Moyers, Johnson's press secretary, has never consented to be interviewed, but most of Johnson's closest friends, including John Connally and George Christian, Johnson's last press secretary, who spoke to Caro practically on his deathbed, have gone on the record". While writing the book, Caro read the works of the novelist Leo Tolstoy and the historian Edward Gibbon, alternating between the two. "There's almost a view that if it's well written it can't be good history," he told Mark Rozzo of the '' Los Angeles Times'' in 2002. "In my view, it's not good history unless it is well written. History is a narrative. History is a story. If you're not telling a story, you're not being faithful to history."


Publisher–editor

Caro's books have been published by Alfred A. Knopf, first under editor in chief Robert Gottlieb and then by Sonny Mehta, "who took over the Johnson project – enthusiastically – after Gottlieb's departure in 1987." Gottlieb continued as editor of Caro's books after leaving Knopf and excerpted Volume 2 of the Johnson biography at '' The New Yorker'' when he was editor in chief there. Gottlieb, five years Caro's senior, initially suggested the Johnson project to Caro in 1974 in preference to the planned follow-up to the Moses volume, a biography of Fiorello LaGuardia that was then abandoned. The ex-president had recently died and Caro had already decided, before meeting with Gottlieb on the subject, to undertake the Texan's biography; he "wanted to write about power". "We have these unbelievable angry exchanges, but it's always worth it to me," Caro said of his relationship with Gottlieb. "Sometimes we can spend two hours discussing whether to combine two paragraphs."


Future projects

Caro has expressed hope of writing a "full-scale memoir" after completing ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson''. His 2019 book ''Working'' has been described as a "semi-memoir" focused on "Caro's selection of observations...on the arts of researching, interviewing and writing." When asked about other works he would have pursued, Caro replied a biography on
Al Smith Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928. The son of an Irish-American mother and a C ...
, commenting "the more you realize he is probably the most forgotten consequential figure in American history."


Writing process

After conducting his years-long research, Caro attempts to "see the whole book right down to the last line," by putting up an outline on a twenty-two-foot corkboard before writing the first manuscript as a way to prevent writer's block. He writes several successive drafts in longhand on discontinued "legal pads, white with narrow lines," which Caro has mass ordered and keeps in East Hampton. Subsequently, Caro types his books on Smith Corona Electra 210 typewriters, which '' The New Republic'' called "a model practically synonymous with him." Upon the publication of ''The Passage of Power'' in 2012, Caro owned fourteen Smith Coronas, which came down to eleven in 2019, one of which, the one used when writing ''The Power Broker'', was on display in the 2021 New-York Historical Society's ''"Turn Every Page": Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive'' exhibition. Since production of these was discontinued, Caro uses his reserve to supply parts when these become defective. The typewriters are supplied to him from individuals who, upon knowing his use of the Smith Coronas, send theirs to him. Other individuals have attempted to sell Caro theirs, however he only answers to letters offering them as gifts. Since Caro retypes several versions of his manuscripts before submitting for publication, he prefers a bolder text, which he achieves by using
cotton ribbon An ink ribbon or inked ribbon is an expendable assembly serving the function of transferring pigment to paper in various devices for impact printing. Since such assemblies were first widely used on typewriters, they were often called typewriter ri ...
, instead of the now-common nylon. As the former were discontinued, his wife Ina found a supplier that would manufacture them on the condition that Caro order a dozen gross, or 1728 units. He edits with the use of red 314 Berol Draughting pencils and keeps "a ledger tracking how many words he has written against his stringent 1,000-word daily goal." Though he now works in an office, at one point he wrote "in the woods ... in a shack, a 12x15 ... put on cinderblocks."


Awards and honors

For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro has twice won the
Pulitzer Prize for Biography The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography, autobiography or memoir by an American author o ...
, three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award for the Best Nonfiction Book of the Year, and has won virtually every other major literary honor, including two National Book Awards (one for Lifetime Achievement), the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Art and Letters, and the Francis Parkman Prize. In October 2007, Caro was named a "Holtzbrinck Distinguished Visitor" at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany but then was unable to attend. In 2010, he received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama, the highest award in the humanities given in the United States. Delivering remarks at the end of the ceremony, the President said, "I think about Robert Caro and reading ''The Power Broker'' back when I was 22 years old and just being mesmerized, and I'm sure it helped to shape how I think about politics." In 2011, Robert Caro was the recipient of the 2011 BIO Award given each year by members of
Biographers International Biographers International Organization (BIO) is an international, non-profit, 501 (c)(3) organization founded to promote the art and craft of biography, and to further the professional interests of its practitioners. The organization was founded in ...
"to a colleague who had made a major contribution in the advancement of the art and craft of real life depiction." * 1964 – The Society of Silurians Award for outstanding achievement in the field of Public Service History for a series entitled "Misery Acres", exposing fraudulent real estate sales by mail * 1964 – The Deadline Club for outstanding newspaper reporting * 1965 – The Deadline Club for outstanding newspaper reporting * 1965–1966 – Nieman W. Lucius Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University Nieman Foundation * 1975 – Washington Monthly American Political Book Award (''The Power Broker'') * 1975 – 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" (''The Power Broker'') * 1975 – The
Pulitzer Prize for Biography The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography, autobiography or memoir by an American author o ...
(''The Power Broker'')"Biography or Autobiography"
''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
* 1975 – AIA Special Citation * 1982 – The National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year (''The Path to Power'') * 1983 – The Blue Pencil Award from the ''
Columbia Daily Spectator The ''Columbia Daily Spectator'' (known colloquially as the ''Spec'') is the student newspaper of Columbia University. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after ''The Harvard Crimson'', and has ...
'' * 1983 – American Academy of Arts and Letters Award * 1983 – The Carr P. Collins Award from the Texas Institute of Arts and Letters (''The Path to Power'') * 1983 – The Mencken Award for the best book of 1982 (''The Path to Power'') * 1986 – The Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Art and Letters * 1990 – The National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year (''Means of Ascent'') * 1991 – Washington Monthly American Political Book Award (''Means of Ascent'') * 2002 – ''The Power Broker'' chosen by the
Modern Library The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became an ...
as one of the hundred greatest non-fiction books of the twentieth century * 2002 – The National Book Award (''Master of the Senate'') * 2003 – The Los Angeles Times Book Award in Non-Fiction (''Master of the Senate'') * 2003 – The Carl Sandburg Award in Literature (''Master of the Senate'') * 2003 – The
John Steinbeck Award The John Steinbeck Award: "In The Souls of the People", is an annual award given to an individual or group that has contributed to society in the spirit of John Steinbeck. The award is given to artists who capture "Steinbeck’s empathy, commitme ...
in literature (''Master of the Senate'') * 2003 – The Pulitzer Prize for Biography (''Master of the Senate'') * 2008 – Elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters *2009 – Elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences * 2010 – Inducted into the
New York Writers Hall of Fame The New York State Writers Hall of Fame or NYS Writers Hall of Fame is a project established in 2010 by the Empire State Center for the Book, which is the New York State affiliate of the U.S. Library of Congress's Center for the Book, and the Em ...
* 2010 – The National Humanities Medal * 2011 – The BIO Award from Biographers International Organization for advancing the art and craft of biography. * 2012 – National Book Award (Nonfiction), finalist, ''The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson'' * 2012 – National Book Critics Circle Award (Biography), finalist, ''The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson'' * 2012 – The Los Angeles Times Book Award in Non-Fiction (''The Passage of Power'') * 2012 – The
New York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. ...
American History Book Prize (''The Passage of Power'') * 2012 – The Mark Lynton History Prize (''The Passage of Power'') * 2012 –
Norman Mailer Prize The Norman Mailer Prize or Mailer Prize is an American literary award established in 2009 by The Norman Mailer Center and The Norman Mailer Writers Colony to celebrate writers and their works. Norman Mailer was a 20th-century American author. Prizes ...
, Biography. * 2016 – The National Book Award (Lifetime Achievement)


Family

After graduation from Princeton, Caro married Ina Joan Sloshberg, who was then still a student at Connecticut College. The Caros have a son, Chase Arthur, and three grandchildren, who live in White Plains. Caro has described his wife as "the whole team" on all five of his books. She sold their house and took a job teaching school to fund work on ''The Power Broker'' and is the only other person who conducted research for his books. Ina is the author of ''The Road from the Past: Traveling through History in France'' (1996), a book which
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a spe ...
called, at the presentation of her honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from The City University of New York in 2011, "the essential traveling companion ... for all who love France and its history." '' Newsweek'' reviewer Peter Prescott commented, "I'd rather go to France with Ina Caro than with
Henry Adams Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918) was an American historian and a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. Presidents. As a young Harvard graduate, he served as secretary to his father, Charles Fra ...
or Henry James. The unique premise of her intelligent and discerning book is so startling that it's a wonder no one has thought of it before." Ina frequently writes about her travels through France in her blog, Paris to the Past. In June 2011, W. W. Norton published her second book, ''Paris to the Past: Traveling through French History by Train''. Robert Caro had a younger sibling, Michael, a retired real estate manager who died in 2018. Caro's son, Chase, was disbarred automatically in November 2007 after pleading guilty "to second-degree grand larceny for stealing
ver $750,000 Ver or VER may refer to: * Voluntary Export Restraints, in international trade * VER, the IATA airport code for General Heriberto Jara International Airport * Volk's Electric Railway, Brighton, England * VerPublishing, of the German group VDM Pub ...
from three former clients in the course of real estate transactions." In April 2008, he was sentenced "to 2 1/2 to 7 1/2 years in prison" after admitting to stealing $310,000 meant for his grandparents' trust fund. Additionally, Caro "agreed to pay restitution of $1.1 million, which also includes funds from a third theft." All his sentences ran concurrently. As of 2012, Chase works "in the information-technology business".


Legacy

Due to Caro's work ethic and voluminous work several authors have been compared to him and labelled as "Caro-esque", "Caro-like" or "in the Caro mold" for their own extensive research, such as
Renata Adler Renata Adler (born October 19, 1938) is an American author, journalist, and film critic. Adler was a staff writer-reporter for ''The New Yorker'', and in 1968–69, she served as chief film critic for ''The New York Times''. She is also a write ...
, Taylor Branch,
Douglas Brinkley Douglas Brinkley (born December 14, 1960) is an American author, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities, and professor of history at Rice University. Brinkley is the history commentator for CNN, Presidential Historian for the New York Histori ...
, David Garrow,
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, Gerard Henderson, Jason Horowitz,
Francis Jennings Francis "Fritz" Jennings (1918November 17, 2000) was an American historian, best known for his works on the colonial history of the United States. He taught at Cedar Crest College from 1968 to 1976, and at the Moore College of Art from 1966 to 1 ...
,
Robert G. Kaiser Robert G. Kaiser (born 1943) is an American journalist and author. He retired from ''The Washington Post'' in early 2014 after a career of more than 50 years on the paper. During his career he served as managing editor (1991–98) and associate e ...
,
David Paul Kuhn David Paul Kuhn is an American writer, and political analyst, whose most recent book,''The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution'', was recognized by ''The New York Times'' as one of the "100 Notab ...
,
Roland Lazenby Roland Lazenby is an American sportswriter and educator. Biography Lazenby has written more than five dozen nonfiction books, mainly about basketball and American football. These include ''Fifty Years of the Final Four: Golden Moments of the N ...
, David Maraniss, David McCullough, Charles Moore, Edmund Morris, Roger Morris,
David Nasaw David Nasaw (born July 18, 1945) is an American author, biographer and historian who specializes in the cultural, social and business history of early 20th Century America. Nasaw is on the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City University of ...
, Richard Neustadt, Les and Tamara Payne, Rick Perlstein, Steven Pressfield,
Michael Shnayerson Michael Beahan Shnayerson (born December 2, 1954) is an American journalist and contributing editor for '' Vanity Fair'' magazine. He is the author of several books and over 75 ''Vanity Fair'' stories since 1986. Two of his pieces for the magazine h ...
, Lytton Strachey,
Julia E. Sweig Julia Sweig is an American writer and scholar. She is the author of the New York Times Best Seller ''Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight,'' which portrays Lady Bird's influence and power in the formidable political partnership at the center o ...
,
William T. Vollmann William Tanner Vollmann (born July 28, 1959) is an American novelist, journalist, war correspondent, short story writer, and essayist. He won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction with the novel ''Europe Central''.
, and the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is the United States Democratic Party, Democratic Hill committee for the United States House of Representatives, working to elect Democrats to that body. The DCCC recruits candidates, raises ...
's Research Department. In 2011, his alma mater, Horace Mann School, commenced awarding the Robert Caro '53 Prize for Literary Excellence in the Writing of History at a ceremony held annually at the head of school's home. In 2017 the school named a classroom at Tillinghast Hall "Robert A. Caro '53 History Classroom" to which Caro reacted by stating that it would be "hard for imto think of anything that would make imhappier." ''
Motherless Brooklyn ''Motherless Brooklyn'' is a novel by Jonathan Lethem that was first published in 1999. The story is set in Brooklyn, and follows Lionel Essrog, a detective who has Tourette's, a disorder marked by involuntary tics. Essrog works for Frank Minn ...
'', the 2019 film directed by Edward Norton, loosely based on the 1999 novel of the same name by
Jonathan Lethem Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was publishe ...
, was inspired by Caro's biography of Robert Moses, ''The Power Broker''.
León Krauze León Rodrigo Krauze Turrent (Mexico City, January 4, 1975) is a Mexican journalist, author, and news anchor. Personal life He is the son of Enrique Krauze and is married with children. Krauze holds a master's degree from New York University. ...
wrote in ''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'' comparing Norton's character in that film to Caro himself. In January 2020, the New-York Historical Society acquired Caro's complete archive, consisting of "200 linear feet of material", part of which will be digitized and made wholly available to researchers in a Robert A. Caro Study Space. Additionally, a permanent exhibition, named ''Robert Caro Working'' after his 2019 book ''
Working Working may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community Arts and media * Working (musical), ''Working'' (musical), a 1978 musical * Working (TV series), ''Working'' (TV s ...
'', will be set up at the Society's library. Caro stated that he was "just plain delighted" since his "favorite aunt often took" him there as well as having spoken there and "been a recipients of its awards." An exhibition called ''"Turn Every Page": Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive'' opened on October 22, 2021, becoming "the first permanent public exhibition of an archive devoted to a living author in the country." The title comes from an advice from then-editor of ''
Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'', Alan Hathway, had given to Caro as a young reporter on "his first investigative assignment, Hathway "looked at me for what I remember as a very long time … 'Just remember,' he said. 'Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamn page.'"" The advice is also the title of the 2022 documentary on Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb's collaborations, directed by the latter's daughter,
Lizzie Gottlieb Elizabeth "Lizzie" Alice Gottlieb (born January 5, 1971) is an American film and theater director best known for her documentaries '' Turn Every Page'', ''Today's Man'', and ''Romeo Romeo''. Early life Elizabeth Alice Gottlieb, known as "Li ...
.


Selected works


Books

* * Caro, Robert A., ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power''. 1982. Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York. . xxiii + 882 p. + 48 p. of plates: illus. * Caro, Robert A., ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent''. 1990. Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York. . xxxiv + 506 pp. * Caro, Robert A., ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate''. 2002. Alfred A. Knopf Inc, New York. . xxiv + 1167 pp. * Caro, Robert A., ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power''. 2012. Alfred A. Knopf Inc, New York. . 752 pp. * Zinsser, William Knowlton (ed.), ''Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography''. 2016. Houghton Mifflin, * Caro, Robert A., ''
Working Working may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community Arts and media * Working (musical), ''Working'' (musical), a 1978 musical * Working (TV series), ''Working'' (TV s ...
''. April 2019. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, New York. . 240 pp.


Audiobooks

* Caro, Robert A.,
On Power
', 2017, Audible. . 1 hr and 42 mins.


Articles

* Caro, Robert A. (February 3, 1991).

. ''The New York Times''. . Retrieved July 29, 2020. * Caro, Robert A and Vonnegut, Kurt.
The Round Table: Fiction, Biography and the Use of Power
" ''Hampton shorts. 4 : fiction plus poetry plus drama plus interviews from the Hamptons & the East End''. 1999. Hamptons Literary Publications, Water Mill, N.Y. * Caro, Robert A. (August 27, 2008).

. ''The New York Times''. . Retrieved July 29, 2020.


References


Further reading

* *


External links


Official websiteOfficial Facebook page
*
''In Depth'' interview with Caro, April 7, 2002
C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
*Caro, Robert A.
''The City Shaper'' Article on Robert Moses and the writing of ''The Power Broker''
''The New Yorker'', January 5, 1998.
Robert Caro discusses a volume of his biography of President Johnson
''LOC.gov'' video.
Robert Caro, The Art of Biography No. 5
''Paris Review'', Summer 2016 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Caro, Robert Allan 1935 births Living people 20th-century American historians 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American biographers American male biographers American male non-fiction writers American people of Polish-Jewish descent Columbia University alumni Historians of New York City Horace Mann School alumni Jewish American historians Journalists from New York City Lyndon B. Johnson National Book Award winners National Humanities Medal recipients Newsday people Nieman Fellows Official biographers to the presidents of the United States People from the Upper West Side Princeton University alumni Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners Writers from Manhattan