Robert Caro

Robert Caro – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Discover the life of Robert A. Caro—the American biographer whose epic works The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson reshaped how we understand power, politics, and narrative. Explore his methods, achievements, and enduring influence.

Introduction

Robert Allan Caro (born October 30, 1935) is an American biographer, historian, and journalist revered for his painstaking research, dramatic narrative style, and deep probing into the nature of political power.

His books are not just portraits of exceptional individuals—Robert Moses in The Power Broker, and Lyndon B. Johnson in The Years of Lyndon Johnson—but examinations of how power works, and how it shapes society and ordinary lives.

Caro is often held up as a standard of biography and narrative nonfiction, with many writers termed “Caro-esque” for their own ambitious research and detailed style.

Early Life and Education

Robert Caro was born on October 30, 1935, in New York City. Celia (née Mendelow) (born in New York) and Benjamin Caro, who was born in Warsaw, Poland.

He grew up on Central Park West at 94th Street.

Caro attended the Horace Mann School (a private preparatory school in New York) after his mother's death, fulfilling her final wish.

One anecdote from his school years: as a student he translated a school newspaper edition into Russian and mailed 10,000 copies to students in the Soviet Union.

He graduated from Horace Mann in 1953 and went on to Princeton University, majoring in English. The Daily Princetonian and also wrote for student publications and humor magazines.

Notably, his senior thesis—on Ernest Hemingway's existential development—was so long that afterward the English Department instituted a maximum-length rule, informally called the “Caro rule.”

Early Career: Journalism & Transition to Biography

After college, Caro began his career in journalism. New Brunswick Daily Home News in New Jersey.

He also briefly engaged in political work, acting as a publicist for a county Democratic Party, but he soon left politics, disturbed by ethical compromises he witnessed.

He eventually joined Newsday, a Long Island newspaper, as an investigative reporter. Newsday, he developed his signature style of deep, investigative research into power structures—he once wrote a series dubbed “Anatomy of a $9 Burglary”, which demonstrated how much could be learned from a small, apparently trivial crime.

One story from that era—a critique of a proposed bridge across Long Island Sound, championed by Robert Moses—led him to reconsider Moses’s influence and power. He has said that was a turning point in his intellectual life.

Major Works & Achievements

The Power Broker

Caro’s first major book was The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, published in 1974.

He intended it to take nine months, but it ultimately took several years due to the depth of research.

The Power Broker won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the Francis Parkman Prize, and has been recognized by the Modern Library as one of the greatest nonfiction books of the 20th century.

This book established Caro’s reputation as a historical biographer unmatched in depth, scrutiny, and narrative ambition.

The Years of Lyndon Johnson

After The Power Broker, Caro turned to his life work: a multi-volume biography of President Lyndon B. Johnson, titled The Years of Lyndon Johnson.

So far (as of now) he has published four volumes:

1. The Path to Power (1982)

2. Means of Ascent (1990)

3. Master of the Senate (2002)

4. The Passage of Power (2012)

A fifth, final volume is in progress.

In his biography, Caro examines not only Johnson the man, but how he grasped and used power—how political systems, institutions, personalities, alliances, and ambition intersect. He also explores the contradictions in Johnson’s legacy: as both a shrewd political operator and a driver of progressive legislation (e.g. civil rights, the Great Society).

Caro is known for relocating to Texas and Washington, D.C., to immerse himself in Johnson’s world—reading local newspapers, interviewing ranch hands, senators, and staffers, and living in the spaces Johnson inhabited.

He has said his aim is always to see not just the subject, but the environment and the web of power around him.

Working and Other Contributions

In 2019, Caro published Working, a semi-memoir that peeks behind the curtain of his research, writing process, philosophy of power, and how he composes his books.

He has also undertaken many essays, interviews, and lectures over the years, reflecting on biography, history, narrative structure, and the moral responsibilities of a historian.

Methods, Style & Philosophy

One of Caro’s most celebrated aspects is his method—meticulous, exhaustive, patient, and fearless. Some signatures of his approach:

• He insists on “turning every page,” never assuming a document is irrelevant.

• He builds enormous outlines, often posting them across walls or corkboards so he can see how all parts interlock before actually writing.

• He writes his first drafts longhand, typically on legal pads.

• He then types multiple drafts on Smith Corona Electra 210 typewriters—machines he collects and maintains, refusing to shift to computers for drafting.

• He sets a daily word goal (often around 1,000 words) and tracks progress in a ledger.

• He edits and revises with great care, often over many drafts.

• He values narrative: for Caro, good history must also be well written. He views storytelling as integral to truth, not a compromise.

In interviews, he often emphasizes that power is his central subject—not merely the lives of Moses or Johnson, but how power is acquired, exercised, maintained, and checked, and how it affects the powerless.

He also speaks of his work ethic and perseverance: much of his writing is done in a disciplined, almost ascetic way—with limited distractions, deep immersion, and a conviction that the subject demands nothing less.

Awards, Honors & Recognition

Robert Caro’s work has been widely honored and influential:

• He has won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography twice (for The Power Broker and for Master of the Senate).

• He has also received National Book Awards, National Book Critics Circle Awards, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

• In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal.

• In 2025, the Authors Guild awarded him the Preston Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community.

• His archive was acquired by the New-York Historical Society, which now preserves his documents and drafts; the institution has also launched exhibitions such as Turn Every Page showcasing his process.

• The New York Historical Society recently named him its first-ever Founders Historian Laureate, acknowledging his longtime connection to New York and his monumental contributions.

Caro’s reputation is such that many writers in history and biography are compared to him: “Caro-esque.”

Legacy and Influence

Robert Caro has left a lasting mark in multiple dimensions:

• Biographical standard: His methods and depth have become benchmarks for serious biography.

• Power as subject: He reshaped how biographies can address power—showing that individual lives cannot be separated from institutional and political forces.

• Narrative history: He demonstrated that deep scholarship and compelling storytelling need not be opposed, but can enhance each other.

• Inspiring new scholars: Many historians, biographers, journalists, and narrative nonfiction writers cite Caro as a formative model.

• Public understanding of power: His books have influenced how people view urban planning, political maneuvering, infrastructure, legislative institutions, and the shadows within democracy.

His works remain widely read and taught; his archive is a resource for future generations; and his ongoing efforts (such as finishing the Johnson volume) testify to his life’s commitment to understanding power in America.

Personality, Character & Work Ethic

From interviews, profiles, and testimonies:

• Caro is known for incredible patience and persistence: many volumes took over a decade each to research and write.

• He maintains a disciplined routine—few distractions, rigorous output, a strict word count, and working in his home in New York with his wife Ina as a research partner.

• He favors analog tools (legal pads, typewriters) in an era of digital work, seeing them as integral to his process.

• He is relatively reclusive in public, focusing more on research and writing than on publicity or media.

• He holds deeply to intellectual integrity: always questioning sources, seeking multiple perspectives, and being careful about claims.

• He values narrative and human drama—not reducing people to abstractions but attempting to portray them in their full complexity.

Caro’s marriage to his wife, Ina Caro, is often described as a partnership: she has done research, editing, and supported him in tangible ways (including taking financial risks to free him to write).

Selected Memorable Quotes

Here are a few notable quotes attributed to Robert Caro or about his philosophy:

• “Turn every page. Never assume anything.” (Advice he was given early as a reporter, and a motto he adopted.)

• “What I am trying to do is to show not only how power works but the effect of power on the powerless: How political power affects our lives, every single day, in ways we never think about.”

• On writing and history: “You can’t understand what someone is doing unless you understand how he got there.” (This reflects his method of tracing origins and context.)

• On narrative: “In my view, it’s not good history unless it is well written. History is a narrative. History is a story.” (He emphasizes that history must engage through story, not just facts.)

• On time and patience: He has compared long periods of research to watching the slow chipping away of rock—incrementally and persistently.

Lessons from Robert Caro

From his life and work, we can draw several enduring lessons:

1. Depth over speed: Caro shows that patience and depth of research can produce work that lasts far beyond momentary trends.

2. Never skip over detail: His motto “turn every page” teaches us not to assume irrelevance in any source.

3. Power is central: Understanding institutions, structures, and power relations is essential to reading history.

4. Marry scholarship and narrative: Truth told without care for how it reads may fail to engage readers; storytelling and rigor can and should coexist.

5. Discipline matters: Consistent output—even slow—accumulates into monumental work.

6. Intellectual humility: Caro’s willingness to revise, question, and re-check sources underscores that rigor demands humility.

Current Status & Ongoing Work

As of today:

• Caro is still working on the fifth volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson.

• His archive is housed at the New-York Historical Society, which holds exhibits and a research room dedicated to his manuscripts and process.

• In 2025, Caro was named the first Founders Historian Laureate by the New-York Historical Society, a prestigious honor recognizing his enduring contributions to American history and literature.

Conclusion

Robert Caro is not merely a biographer of extraordinary individuals—he is a chronicler of power itself. Through exhaustive research, persistent questioning, empathy, and narrative clarity, he invites readers to see how decisions, institutions, and ambition ripple through history and shape the lives of many.

His life and methods remind us that writing, especially the history of power, demands time, patience, integrity—and the courage to look behind the façades.