Robert Caro spent seven years researching and writing this 1,200-page biography of Robert Moses, the man who shaped modern New York more than any mayor or governor. Moses held positions including parks commissioner and head of the Triborough Bridge Authority for over four decades, accumulating power that allowed him to build highways, bridges, parks, and public housing while destroying neighborhoods and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Caro traces Moses's rise from idealistic reformer to power broker who could override elected officials and ignore citizen opposition. The book reveals how Moses actually operated: using control of toll revenue to make himself independent of political supervision, manipulating the press, and ruthlessly destroying anyone who opposed him. Caro documents the human cost of Moses's projects, particularly the Cross-Bronx Expressway that tore through stable neighborhoods, and examines how his highway-centered vision shaped cities' development for generations. The biography also explores Moses's personality: his obsessive work habits, his contempt for democracy, and his complicated relationship with New York's political establishment. Caro pioneered a new form of biography that uses one life to illuminate broader systems of power. Readers will find here not just the story of one man but a revelation of how power actually works in American cities, with implications that extend far beyond New York.