Robert Caro

Global leaders attest, no one writes better about power than the great biographer

- says Erica Wagner

Robert Caro, who will be 90 years old at the end of this month, is widely credited with reinventing the art of political biography. Yet in five decades of writing, he has only addressed the lives of two men: Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson.

When The Power Broker was published in 1974, some wondered why an unelected New York bureaucrat was worthy not only of a biography but one that runs to 1,200 pages. Yet the book became an instant classic, demonstrating how as an urban planner Moses, over more than 40 years, transformed the city’s landscape.

The Power Broker “helped to shape how I think about politics”, Barack Obama has said. New York’s current frontrunner for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, keeps a copy on his shelf. When Mark Rutte, then prime minister of the Netherlands and now secretary general of Nato, thought to himself, “Who can I meet that’s interesting in New York?” he thought of Caro — and started to lurk at Patsy’s, the Italian restaurant off Broadway on 56th, a favourite haunt of the biographer.

When that didn’t work, Rutte was eventually able to make a lunch date — but stuck in traffic, he was nearly late. Caro is renowned for his own punctuality, and let’s just say doesn’t like others to be late, either. “We jumped out of the cab and ran three or four blocks to be two minutes ahead of him!” Rutte laughs. The pair are now firm friends.

Caro made the name of Moses indelible: but more than that, for politicians such as Rutte, he demonstrated the patterns of power. In New York, if you've been to Lincoln Center or Shea Stadium, if you've driven on almost any highway, if you've taken your children to a playground or walked on Jones Beach, you have Moses to thank. Or to curse, if your home was destroyed to make way for one of his roads.