The Power Broker
by Robert A. Caro
Caro's study of Robert Moses, who built the parks, bridges and highways of New York without ever being elected, and how an idealistic reformer became an unaccountable power. It is the definitive book on how power is acquired, held and abused in institutions, and on what gets built when nobody can say no.
Read it if…
you want to understand institutional power deeply and have a month to give it.
Skip it if…
you want a short lesson; it is 1,200 pages and earns them.
Three things you will actually use
- Power is acquired by controlling details others ignore.
- Unaccountable power corrupts the goals it began with.
- Who can say no determines what gets built.
Do this first
Read the chapters on how he wrote the authority legislation to make himself unremovable.
Our verdict
The definitive book on power.
Compare with other Leadership books
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