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The Ezra Klein Show

Book Review: Robert Caro on 50 Years of ‘The Power Broker’

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.611K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As of this week, the archive of this show is behind a paywall. The three most recent episodes are free, but earlier episodes are available only to New York Times subscribers. If you don’t want the whole subscription, there’s an audio-only subscription for $1.50 a week. That gets you access to our archives, as well as the archives of all the other great Times podcasts. To help make the pitch here, I wanted to share an episode from our friends at the “Book Review” podcast. It’s hosted by Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The Times’s Book Review section. And I thought you might enjoy this particular episode with Robert Caro about his book “The Power Broker.” It came out 50 years ago, and it’s still one of the most influential books in politics and policy circles — for better or for worse. In this conversation they dig into why that is and what to make of the book’s legacy. I hope you enjoy it. To learn more about the subscription, visit nytimes.com/podcasts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

As of this week, the archive of this show is Beyond Paywall. So we have the most

0:06.2

recent three episodes, they're free, but the episodes further back in the feed are

0:11.2

only available to New York Times subscribers.

0:14.0

Or if you don't have or want the whole subscription,

0:16.5

there is an audio only subscription too.

0:18.6

That's about a dollar 50 a week.

0:21.2

And as I've said before, I think this is important in the long run. We have to do work that you think is worth paying for if we're going to be able to keep making that work as good as we want it to be.

0:31.0

That subscription either way, including the audio one, it gets you access to all the New York Times audio shows.

0:37.0

So that's us, but also the Daily, the Run Up, Hard Fork, a matter of opinion, modern love, the opinion serial, the book review, everything

0:45.4

from the serial gang, and much, much more.

0:49.2

And to help get a sense of that breath, I wanted to share an episode from one of those other shows.

0:54.4

This is from the Book Review, which is hosted by Gilbert Cruz, the editor of the Times Book Review

0:59.3

section.

1:00.6

And this particular episode is with the legend himself, Robert Caro, the author of The Power Broker.

1:06.1

I hope you enjoy.

1:07.3

I'm Gilbert Cruz editor, the New York Times Book Book Review and this is the Book Review

1:14.2

podcast. This week I'm joined by a modern master of biography and history writing

1:20.4

Mr Robert Caro. He has written four volumes of The Years of Linden Johnson,

1:25.0

a multi-book work on the life of the 36 President of the United States.

1:30.0

Volume 3, Master of the Senate, won the Pulitzer Prize.

1:34.0

Volume 4, Passage of Power, appeared on our recent list of the best books of the 21st century so far.

1:41.0

Before all that, however, in September 1974, 50 years ago, he published the Power Broker,

...

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