Robert Caro

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Robert Allan Caro
Born July 30, 1935 (1935-19-30) (age 74)
New York, New York
Occupation Biographer
NationalityAmerican
Genresnon-fiction
Notable work(s)The Power Broker
The Years of Lyndon Johnson
Robert Allan Caro (born October 30, 1935) is abiographer best known for his studies ofUnited States political figuresRobert Moses andLyndon B. Johnson. After working many years as a reporter, Caro wroteThe Power Broker (1974), a biography ofNew York urban plannerRobert Moses. Then he began the biographical series of the U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, known asThe Years of Lyndon Johnson (1982, 1990, 2002). For his biographies of Moses and Johnson, Caro has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography (1975, 2003); he has twice won the National Book Critic Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year (1982, 1990); he was awarded a Gold Medal in Biography and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute (2003, 1986); and he won the Francis Parkman Prize in 1975.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography2 The Power Broker3 The Years of Lyndon Johnson4 Awards5 Family6 Pop culture references7 Bibliography8 References9 External links
[edit] Biography
He was born on October 30, 1935. In 1953, Caro graduated from theHorace Mann School, where he is known for translating an edition of his school newspaper into Russian and mailing 10,000 copies to schoolboys in the USSR.[1] In 1957 he received a degree in English fromPrinceton University, where he was managingeditor ofThe Daily Princetonian. He was a Carnegie Fellow at Columbia University. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He began his professional career as areporter with the New Brunswick Daily Home News (now merged into theHome News Tribune) in New Jersey. He also spent six years as aninvestigative reporter with theLong Island, New York newspaperNewsday. In October 2007, Caro was named a "Holtzbrinck Distinguished Visitor" at theAmerican Academy in Berlin, Germany but was unable to attend. On February 25, 2010 President Obama awarded Robert Caro the nation's highest award in the Humanities, The National Humanities Medal. Delivering remarks at the end of the ceremony the President said, "I think about Robert Caro and readingThe 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."[2] On April 10, 2010, he was inducted into theNew York State Writers Hall of Fame.[3]
[edit] The Power Broker
Main article:The Power Broker
After spending the academic year of 1966-1967 as aNieman Fellow atHarvard University, Caro began work on his first book, The Power Broker, which is both a biography of New York urban planner Robert Moses and a study of Caro's favorite theme, the acquisition and use of power. Not finished 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 thirty-five 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 GovernorAl Smith. His wife,Ina Caro, functioned as his research assistant. In fact, her master's thesis on theVerrazano-Narrows Bridge stemmed from this work. The Power Broker was a critical success, winning thePulitzer Prize in Biography and theFrancis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that best "exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist," and was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century.
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 theCross-Bronx Expressway, 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.
[edit] The Years of Lyndon Johnson
Main article:The Years of Lyndon Johnson
Following this success, Caro turned his attention to Lyndon B. Johnson. Caro retraced Johnson's life by temporarily moving toruralTexas andWashington, 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, is projected to run to four volumes. The first, The Path to Power (1982) covers Johnson's life up to his failed 1941 campaign for theUnited States Senate. It won aNational Book Critics Circle Award, 1983, a Washington Monthly Best Political Book Award, 1983, and an H.L. Mencken Award. The second volume, Means of Ascent (1990), commences in the aftermath of that defeat and continues through his election to that office in 1948. This volume won aNational Book Critics Circle Award, 1990, and Washington Monthly Best Political Book Award, 1990. The third and most recent published volume,Master of the Senate (2002) chronicles Johnson's rapid ascent and rule as SenateMajority Leader; it garnered Caro a secondPulitzer Prize in Biography as well as aNational Book Award, a Carl Sandburg Award, a John Steinbeck Award and a Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The Times of London wrote "Robert Caro has written one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age." Caro is currently at work on the last volume, tentatively titled The Presidency.
Caro's books portray Johnson as alternating between scheming opportunist and visionary progressive. Caro argued, for example, that Johnson's victory in the 1948 runoff for the Democratic nomination for theU.S. Senate was achieved through extensive fraud and ballot box stuffing. Caro also highlighted some of Johnson's campaign contributions, such as those from the Texas construction firmBrown and Root; in 1962 the company was acquired by another Texas firm,Halliburton, which became a major contractor in theVietnam War. In addition, Caro argued that Johnson was awarded theSilver Star inWorld War II mainly for political reasons, and that he later lied to journalists and the public about the circumstances for which it was awarded. Despite these criticisms, Caro's portrayal of Johnson also notes his struggles on behalf ofprogressive causes such as the Voting Rights Act.
In a 2009 interview with Charlie Rose, Caro said that the final volume of his biography of Johnson will be published "not for another three years."[4]
[edit] Awards
For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, twice 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 the National Book Award, the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Art and Letters,awarded once every five years, and the Francis Parkman Prize. In 2010, he received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama, the highest award in the humanities given in this country. 2010 -- the National Humanities Medal. 2010 -- Inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. 2003 -- The Pulitzer Prize for Biography (Master of the Senate). 2003 -- The John Steinbeck Award in literature (Master of the Senate). 2003 -- The Carl Sandberg Award in Literature (Master of the Senate). 2003 -- The Los Angeles Times Book award in Non-Fiction) (Master of the Senate). 2002— The National Book Award (Master of the Senate). 2002 - The Power Broker was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest non-fiction books of the twentieth century. 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). 1986 -- The Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 1983 – The Mencken Award for the best book of 1982 (The Path to Power). 1983 – The Carr P. Collins Award from the Texas Institute of Arts and Letters (The Path to Power). 1983 – American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. 1983 – The Blue Pencil Award from the Columbia Daily Spectator. 1982 -- The National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year (The Path to Power). 1975 -- The Pulitzer Prize for Biography (The Power Broker). 1975 – AIA Special Citation. 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 – Washington Monthly American Political Book Award (The Power Broker). 1965-1966- Nieman W. Lucius Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University Nieman Foundation. 1965 – The Deadline Club for outstanding newspaper reporting. 1964 – The Deadline Club for outstanding newspaper reporting. 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. 1957 – Graduated from Princeton University Cum Laude.
[edit] Family
Caro has described his wife, Ina Caro, as "the whole team" on all four of his books. She sold the Caros' house to fund work on The Power Broker, and is the only person other than himself who conducted research for her husband's books. She is the author of her own book, The Road from the Past: Travelling through History in France. When it was published in 1994,Arthur Schlesinger Jr., called it "the essential travelling companion ... for all who love France and its history." CommentedNewsweek reviewer Peter Prescott: "I'd rather go to France with Ina Caro than with Henry Adams 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."[5]
[edit] Pop culture references
In the television seriesThe Simpsons's episode "Treehouse of Horror XVI" the character Lisa is seen reading Master of the Senate in the vignette "Bart A.I."
In the 2004 filmThe Stepford Wives, the Stepford Women discuss Caro'sThe Years of Lyndon Johnson, mid-movie during an ominous "book club" meeting.
[edit] Bibliography
Caro, Robert A.,The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. 1974. Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York. (ISBN 0394480767). ix + 1246 pp. + xxxiv pp.: illus. Caro, Robert A., The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. 1982. Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York. (ISBN 0394499735). 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. (ISBN 0394528352). xxxiv + 506 pp. Caro, Robert A., The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. 2002. Alfred A. Knopf Inc, New York. (ISBN 0-394-52836-0). xxiv + 1167 pp.
[edit] References
^The HM Record Online (Russian copy)^ Washington Post, 2/26/2010 and Suntimes.com 3/4/2010.^ Albany Times Union 8-14, 2010^"A conversation with Robert Caro". charlierose.com. 2009-04-10.http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10215. Retrieved 2009-08-04. ^ Book jacket of The Road from the Past, 1994
Zinsser, William Knowlton (ed.), Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography, Houghton Mifflin,ISBN 0395486173 www.Newsweek.com/id/183678-70K, Darmon, Jonathan, "The Marathon Man,"
Newsweek, The Nation; Arts, February 7, 2009 on line publication date, Feb. 16, 2009
[edit] External links
Official websiteRobert A. Caro's Jan. 5, 1998 New Yorker article on Robert Moses and the writing of The Power BrokerShort essay about Caro by Morgan Meis.LOC.gov video. Robert Caro discusses his new book on President Lyndon B. Johnson.Feb. 16, 2009 "Newsweek" article on Robert Caro and the publication of his final volume on President Lyndon B. Johnson.Robert Caro: Understanding Power (Documentary on the life of Robert Caro)Booknotes interview with Caro on Means of Ascent, April 29, 1990
Persondata
NAME Caro, Robert A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caro, Robert Allan (full name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION biographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTHNew York, New York
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Caro"
Categories:1935 births |Living people |Princeton University alumni |Columbia University alumni |Nieman Fellows |Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners |American biographers |Horace Mann School alumni |Official biographers to the Presidents of the United States