The study of power …

… Bryan Appleyard — Robert Caro and the Man/Monster Who Built New York. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

“These two guys had written a textbook on highway and land planning, and they explained it by mathematical equations. I’m sitting there, taking assiduous notes, and all of a sudden it came to me — this is all bullshit. OK, I know why highways get built. They get built because Robert Moses wants them built. They’re writing this book about power and didn’t understand where power comes from, and neither did anybody else.”