Author Guide · Biography & History
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Robert Caro expected his book on Robert Moses, the unelected official who built much of modern New York, to take nine months. It took seven years and 522 interviews, and his wife Ina sold their house on Long Island to keep the family going while he finished it. The Power Broker (1974) won the Pulitzer Prize, and Caro, born in New York in 1935 and trained as an investigative reporter at Newsday, turned to Lyndon Johnson. Four volumes of The Years of Lyndon Johnson have appeared since 1982; he and Ina lived in the Texas Hill Country for three years to write the first, and in 2026, at ninety, he was still writing the fifth. This guide covers his six key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 6 key books · 1974–2019 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Robert Caro has published six books: The Power Broker (1974), about Robert Moses; four volumes of The Years of Lyndon Johnson — The Path to Power (1982), Means of Ascent (1990), Master of the Senate (2002) and The Passage of Power (2012); and Working (2019), about his methods. Start with The Power Broker, which stands alone. A fifth and final Johnson volume is in progress.
Where to Start with Robert Caro
If you want his defining book
→ The Power Broker (1974) — a self-contained Pulitzer winner about power in New York.
If you want the Johnson series from the beginning
→ The Path to Power (1982) — the volumes are meant to be read in order.
If you want the volume that won the most prizes
→ Master of the Senate (2002) — Johnson in the Senate and the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
If you want to see how he works first
→ Working (2019) — short pieces on research, interviewing and writing.
6 Robert Caro Books, in Order
The Power Broker
A biography of Robert Moses, who never won an election yet shaped New York’s parks, bridges and expressways for more than forty years. Caro spent seven years on it and did 522 interviews; his editor Robert Gottlieb cut some 350,000 words, including a chapter on Jane Jacobs, and the book still runs to more than 1,300 pages. It won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Francis Parkman Prize, and is on the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. Moses answered with a 23-page statement repudiating it.
The Path to Power
Johnson’s childhood in the poor Texas Hill Country, his years as a congressional aide and congressman, up to his failed Senate campaign of 1941. Caro and his wife rented a house in the Hill Country for three years to understand where Johnson came from. It won the 1982 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and was a National Book Award finalist.
Means of Ascent
The shortest volume, about 500 pages, covering 1941 to 1948. Its centre is the 1948 Democratic Senate primary in Texas, which Johnson won against the former governor Coke Stevenson by 87 votes after the late “Box 13” returns, and which Caro argues was stolen. It won the 1990 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography.
Master of the Senate
More than 1,100 pages on Johnson’s years in the Senate, opening with a long history of the institution itself. Johnson becomes majority leader and drives through the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights law since Reconstruction, without splitting his party. It won the 2002 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
The Passage of Power
The years 1958 to 1964: Johnson’s failed run against John F. Kennedy for the 1960 nomination, the powerless vice presidency, and the weeks after the assassination in Dallas, when he took over the government and pushed Kennedy’s stalled programme through Congress. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography and the Mark Lynton History Prize, and was a National Book Award finalist.
Working
A short book of pieces on how he works, which he described as a partial memoir, written while he finished the last Johnson volume. It tells how his Newsday editor Alan Hathway told him to “turn every goddamn page”, how he found the people Moses had displaced, and how he learned to sit silently through interviews in the Hill Country until people told him what had really happened.
In What Order to Read Robert Caro
The Power Broker stands entirely on its own, and you can read it before or after the Johnson books. The four Johnson volumes are one continuous biography and should be read in order: each picks up where the last stopped, and the characters — Lady Bird Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Richard Russell, Coke Stevenson — carry over.
If the length puts you off, Working takes an evening and shows what went into the big books. The fifth Johnson volume, on the presidency, Vietnam and the Great Society, has no publication date.
A reading path
1. Working (2019)
2. The Power Broker (1974)
3. The Path to Power (1982)
4. Means of Ascent (1990)
5. Master of the Senate (2002)
6. The Passage of Power (2012)
Everything Else Robert Caro Published
Beyond the 6 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Audio
1
1 book · 2017
- 2017On Powera short audiobook in which Caro talks about power and his work
The years · 1935–2021
Quick facts about Robert Caro
- Known for
- Exhaustively researched biographies about how political power works, above all The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
- 1935
- Born in New York City
- 1974
- The Power Broker
- 2021
- Archive exhibition opens at New-York Historical
- Born
- 30 October 1935, New York City
- Education
- Princeton University, 1957
- Worked
- Investigative reporter at Newsday; Nieman Fellow at Harvard, 1965–66
- Research partner
- His wife, Ina Caro, also a historian
- Honours
- Two Pulitzer Prizes (1975, 2003); National Book Award (2002); National Humanities Medal (2010)
- Archive
- New-York Historical, acquired in 2020
The red mark is 1974: The Power Broker, his biography of Robert Moses.
How Robert Caro Writes: Turn Every Page
Caro’s rule comes from his first editor at Newsday, Alan Hathway, who told him to “turn every goddamn page”. He reads the whole archive, not a sample, and interviews everyone he can find: 522 people for The Power Broker, from Moses’s associates to the families moved out of the way of the Cross Bronx Expressway. For the first Johnson volume he moved to the Texas Hill Country so that people there would talk to him.
His subject is never only the man. He writes about how power is gained and used, and what it costs the people on the receiving end, so his books stop for long set pieces: a chapter on the single mile of Bronx expressway that cost hundreds of families their homes, a history of the Senate before Johnson enters it, the labour of Hill Country women hauling water before electrification. He drafts in longhand, then types on a Smith-Corona Electra 210.
The result is very long books, published far apart; Gottlieb, his editor for fifty years, cut 350,000 words from The Power Broker alone. For writers who report on power at the same depth, see Authors like Robert Caro.
Watch
Robert Caro at the JFK Library
Caro talks with the Boston Globe writer Mark Feeney at a Kennedy Library Forum in May 2012 about The Passage of Power, the fourth Johnson volume.
Frequently asked questions about Robert Caro’s books
How many books has Robert Caro written?
Six: The Power Broker (1974), four volumes of The Years of Lyndon Johnson published between 1982 and 2012, and Working (2019). There is also a short audiobook, On Power (2017). He is writing the fifth and final Johnson volume.
What are Robert Caro’s books in order?
The Power Broker (1974), The Path to Power (1982), Means of Ascent (1990), Master of the Senate (2002), The Passage of Power (2012) and Working (2019).
Where should I start with Robert Caro?
With The Power Broker, which stands alone. If you would rather start with Johnson, begin at volume one, The Path to Power, and read the series in order. If the length worries you, Working is short and shows how the big books were made.
What is Robert Caro’s most famous book?
The Power Broker (1974), his biography of Robert Moses. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and is on the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. The Years of Lyndon Johnson as a whole is his life’s work.
Which Robert Caro books won the Pulitzer Prize?
Two: The Power Broker (1975) and Master of the Senate (2003), both for biography. Master of the Senate also won the National Book Award, and three Johnson volumes won the National Book Critics Circle Award: The Path to Power, Means of Ascent and The Passage of Power.
Is Robert Caro still writing about Lyndon Johnson?
Yes. The fifth and final volume will cover the rest of Johnson’s presidency, including Vietnam, the Great Society and his decision not to run again in 1968, and his retirement. In May 2026 he told C-SPAN the manuscript was about 983 pages. No publication date has been announced.
Is Robert Caro still alive?
Yes. He was born on 30 October 1935 in New York City and is still writing the fifth Johnson volume.
What is Working by Robert Caro about?
Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing (2019) is a short book of pieces on his methods: the Newsday editor who told him to “turn every goddamn page”, how he found the people displaced by Robert Moses, and how he learned to get people in the Texas Hill Country to talk.
How long is The Power Broker?
More than 1,300 pages in its current edition, and it was longer: Robert Gottlieb cut about 350,000 words from the manuscript, including a chapter on Jane Jacobs and the fight over the Lower Manhattan Expressway.
Do I need to read the Lyndon Johnson books in order?
Yes, ideally. The four volumes are one continuous biography: The Path to Power ends in 1941, Means of Ascent runs to 1948, Master of the Senate covers the Senate years, and The Passage of Power runs from 1958 to 1964. Each can be read alone, but people and threads carry over.
What is the film Turn Every Page?
A 2022 documentary by Lizzie Gottlieb about Caro and his editor Robert Gottlieb, her father, and their fifty years of working together. Gottlieb died in 2023.
Who is Ina Caro?
Robert Caro’s wife and his only research assistant on all his books; she sold their house to fund The Power Broker. She is a historian herself, the author of The Road from the Past (1996) and Paris to the Past (2011).
How did Robert Moses react to The Power Broker?
He rejected it. Moses issued a 23-page statement repudiating the book after it appeared in 1974.
Footnotes
- Robert Caro — Wikipedia
- The Years of Lyndon Johnson — Wikipedia
- 50 Facts About The Power Broker — Literary Hub, 2024
- National Book Critics Circle Awards, 1990
- Bringing His Own Light — Publishers Weekly, 2002
- LBJ: From Senate Majority Leader to President — JFK Library Forum, 2012
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“What power always does is reveal. Power reveals.”
— Robert A. Caro, interview with Publishers Weekly (2002)
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