The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life

Average customer rating:

The Real Story About Mayor Guilian's Revolutionary Impact

Heavily researched, strictly respectful of the facts, and first-rate reading

The inner workings of a city in trouble

prince

a fine biography of one of our most successful politicians to date

The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life
Fred Siegel
Manufacturer: Encounter Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
New York | State & Local | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Rudy!: An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Guiliani

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City

Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City

Leadership

America's Mayor, America's President?: The Strange Career of Rudy Giuliani

ASIN: 1594031495

Book Description

The Prince of the City is at once a fascinating character study of one of America's most charismatic public figures, a history of New York over the last forty years, and a classic inquiry into the issue of how cities thrive or die. Siegel's story culminates with a dramatic account of September 11, 2001, revealing how Giuliani's s eight years in office had prepared him and the city to rise to this tragic occasion and how in the aftermath of the attack he became America's Mayor. Siegel concludes with a look at how Guiliani's successor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has handled his legacy and at what lies in Guiliani's political future.

Download Description

In this first comprehensive account of the career of "America's Mayor," Fred Siegel shows how Rudolph Giuliani's successes in New York-restoring law and order, cutting taxes and radically reducing the welfare rolls-demonstrated that cities might again become vibrant and dynamic places to live after thirty years of middle-class flight. The Prince of the City is at once a fascinating character study, a history of New York over the last forty years, and an insight on how cities function. The story that Siegel tells culminates with an account of September 11, 2001, showing how Giuliani's eight years in office had prepared him and the city to rise to the occasion.

Customer Reviews:

The Real Story About Mayor Guilian's Revolutionary Impact.......2007-08-10

Bottom Line: A Great Read - If you are interested in New York City

What You Will Learn: This book provides a very positive, but not one-sided perspective on Mayor Guiliani's political life. If you like the inside baseball type stories, including books by Bob Woodward, you will enjoy these details of how Guiliani dealt with all the great characters in New York City, including other famous politicians like Al Sharpton, Congressman Charlie Rangel, and Governor Mariou Cuomo.

Parting Shot: If you have even a passing interest in Mayor Guiliani or New York Politics this will be a great read for you.

Heavily researched, strictly respectful of the facts, and first-rate reading .......2007-05-12

Written by professor of history Fred Siegel, The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life is an eye-opening look at how Mayor Rudy Giuliani successfully turned around one of America's most troubled cities, beset with budgetary woes, white flight, and skyrocketing crime rates, with an efficiency and eye toward achieving results worthy of Machiavelli's "The Prince". The Prince of the City is as much the story of modern New York itself as it is a portrayal of Giuliani, with especial focus on the flaws of Giuliani's predecessor, Mayor Dinkins, particularly Dinkins' vision of social programs that simply failed to prevent crime as effectively as the deterrent of a strong police force. Giuliani's landmark reforms, such as facilitating a police department that shared information more openly and laterally, merging duplicate bureaucracies, pushing workfare over welfare, and much more created a positive cycle of New Yorker pride banishing fear. The Prince of the City also recounts the many attacks on Giuliani's career, and troubles and fallout from such disastrous incidents as the police shooting death of Diallo. The final chapters offer a dramatic account of the September 11th attacks, revealing how Giuliani's eight years in office prepared the city to endure and properly respond to the tragedy. Though written from a conservative perspective, The Prince of the City is heavily researched, strictly respectful of the facts, and first-rate reading for biographers, historians, and anyone wishing to learn more about Giuliani as a statesman, a politician, a moral leader, and a successful problem solver beset with a myriad of complex quandaries. Highly recommended.

The inner workings of a city in trouble.......2007-04-16

As other reviewers have pointed out, this is as much the story of New York City since the 1960s as it is of Rudy Giuliani. I ordered it to read more about the mayor since he has become a serious candidate for president. The story of the city and its problems was almost more engaging. The left liberal political culture had run the city into the ground. CUNY, the "poor man's Harvard" had collapsed into a city-wide babysitting service. Teachers who had graduated from CUNY were illiterate and were training an illiterate generation of high school "graduates." The author points out how Giuliani became aware of the magnitude of the problem when protest signs held by teachers were filled with misspellings. I also learned a lot about Al Sharpton I wish I didn't know. The fact that Giuliani was able to master this collection of anarchists and hustlers and hacks, and get things done, is a great testimonial to his talents. The errors he made are also on full display so this is not a partisan hagiography. The mayor is there, warts and all. An excellent biography of Giuliani and of the city, itself.

prince.......2007-04-05

This book gave an interesting description of the Giuliani years and the context in which he came to power. It was quite discouraging how so many other New York politicians put their own power and politics above the interested of New Yorkers.

a fine biography of one of our most successful politicians to date.......2007-02-05

This is as much a story of the shark invested waters of being a mayor of New York as it is a biography of Guiliani.
Siegel likes Rudi and it comes through but more importantly Siegel likes New York and his detailed knowledge of its inner workings of this most American city provides a valued backdrop for a compelling tale of electoral politics. The certainty is that politics is race and race is politics and the mothers' milk are jobs and patronage.
He does not spare Dinkins or Pataki or Bloomberg from criticism saving particular aim at Al Sharpton and his ruination of the failed electoral runs of Ruth Meissenger and Mark Green. Coincidentially, at the same time, reading this book, Gentleman Al appeared on MSNBC's Hardball Show to chat and watching the fawning Chris Matthews compliment this race baiting huckster, it was clear that his sins of his past were wiped away by the power of being a celebrity. Conversely, will Guiliani's substantial achievements in governance be wiped away by the media charade which passes for political commentary in this time and age? This book helps keeping those successes front and center.

Follow a leader: Rudy Giuliani proved that New York can be governed.(The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life)(Book Review) : An article from: The Weekly Standard

Average customer rating:

Follow a leader: Rudy Giuliani proved that New York can be governed.(The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life)(Book Review) : An article from: The Weekly Standard
Vincent J. Cannato
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000BD9VVK
Release Date: 2005-09-12

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Weekly Standard, published by Thomson Gale on July 25, 2005. The length of the article is 2323 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Follow a leader: Rudy Giuliani proved that New York can be governed.(The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life)(Book Review)
Author: Vincent J. Cannato
Publication: The Weekly Standard (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 25, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 10 Issue: 42 Page: 27(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Prince Rudy's Courtier: a mugged liberal's love affair with a tough mayor.(The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life)(Book Review): An article from: Reason

Average customer rating:

Prince Rudy's Courtier: a mugged liberal's love affair with a tough mayor.(The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life)(Book Review): An article from: Reason
Tim Cavanaugh
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Reason, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2005. The length of the article is 2822 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Prince Rudy's Courtier: a mugged liberal's love affair with a tough mayor.(The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life)(Book Review)
Author: Tim Cavanaugh
Publication: Reason (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 37 Issue: 6 Page: 48(6)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Average customer rating:

Interesting book about a subject rarely written.

Maria Theresa's Struggle, Superbly Told

Frederick meets Maria Theresa

Solid, well-organized account

Good story

The War of the Austrian Succession
Reed S. Browning
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Austria | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
Hungary | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Battle for Europe: How the Duke of Marlborough Masterminded the Defeat of the French at Blenheim

The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667-1714 (Modern Wars in Perspective)

The Thirty Years War (New York Review Books Classics)

The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558 - 1721 (Modern Wars In Perspective)

The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787-1802 (Modern Wars)

ASIN: 0312125615

Book Description

Reed S. Browning explores the often-changing war aims of the major belligerents-Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Piedmont-Sardinia, and Spain-and links diplomatic and military events to the political and social context from which they arose.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting book about a subject rarely written........2004-08-25

I enjoyed reading this book, simply because there isn't too many books out there on the War of the Austrian Succession. In fact, I am willing to wager that probably only one American in 500 would know what this war was all about. (Maybe 1 in 1000?? One in 2000??)

I am pretty familiar with this war and that helps a lot. The book was written by scholar for scholars basically. Its not an easy book to read to the uninitated reader going in blind. I think I read one previous reviewer suffering from that element.

I thought the author have presented a very readable book, considering all the complex issues, battles and campaigns of this war. The author clearly defined this war as one of Empress Maria Thersea's finest moments as she fought off a very aggressive Frederick the Great and a superb Prussian army, gathered up alliances and waged an effective defense of her crown and territories although she lost Silesia for good.

If there was a weakness in the book, I thought the maps were totally lacking. Considering how important geography was in this conflict, the author should have put in some effort in giving the readers practical maps relating to the war. Some battle maps and illustrations would be nice too.

But its a book for scholars, written by one so I guess I may be asking too much here. Excellent book overall, well worth the time and money to get it and read it. Just have little bit of background to the conflict to get more out of it.

Maria Theresa's Struggle, Superbly Told.......2003-01-13

This book defied my expectations in several different ways: despite being an academic press, it was superbly written and engaging; though primarily a diplomatic history, it proved itself briskly paced, with lively characters and more than occasional joke; also, it overcame the verdict of hindsight that usually treats the War of the Austrian Succession (1741-48) as a mere prelude to the Seven Year's War (1756-63).

There are three real stars of this story. First, Maria Theresa herself, at whose destruction the war was originally aimed, who rallied her subjects and her armies, even as Franco-Prussian alliance had overrun Upper Austria; second, the Marshall de Saxe, bastard son of the exiled Polish King, who rose to become one of France's greatest soldiers (and a future hero to Napoleon); third - and perhaps the biggest surprise, King Charles Emannuel of Savoy-Piedmont, military-diplomatic mastermind of Northern Italy, who, despite his second-tier status within European royalty, parlayed his strategic Alpine position between France and Austria to emerge as the preeminent prince of Italy. Needless to say, there are other luminaries - Argenson and Belle-Isle, the mad French war ministers, waging war without purpose; Bonnie Prince Charlie, Stuart adventurer (and Bourbon cats paw); King George II, victor of Dettingen (last British monarch to fight in battle); Frederick II of Prussia, unscrupulous genius, conqueror of Silesia; and Empress Elizabeth, the Russian wild-card. This is history of the kind found in Tuchman's "Guns of August" and John Keegan's works; richly rewarding.

Frederick meets Maria Theresa.......2002-07-19

Mid Eighteenth Century political/military history is not everyone's cup of tea. The War of Austrian Succession does not have the cache of the better known Seven Years War or the War of Spanish Succession. Nevertheless, the War of Austrian Succession/Silesian Wars has a lot to recommend it. The story of the teenaged Maria Theresa who upon ascending the thrown is greedily attacked by Prussia, Bavaria and France is a great story. With no credible allies, Maria Theresa was able to rally her people to defend her empire.

Reed Browning is good writer and has the organizational ability to help the reader keep track of the myriad of diplomatic and military details. My only criticism is the pathetic maps that accompany the book. The poor author must have not found the money to include better maps with his book.

The War of Austrian Succession is an obscure war. Reed Browning has done a wonderful job of bringing a little known conflict to life.

Solid, well-organized account.......2002-04-07

The War of the Austrian succession began when Frederick the Great(as he was to become eventually) invaded Silesia on 16 Dec 1740 and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. This book is well-researched and a reader can be confident that an accurate and competent account is being read. Anyone who wants to read such an account will welcome this book. Solid, well-written, authoritative.

Good story.......2001-02-06

I read this book because I knew nothing about the mid-eighteenth century in Europe, and I found the story to fascinating. I could have done with some decent maps. Those in the book could have been sketched by a four-year-old. No legends. Few labels. Forget trying to put them in any spacial context with the continent. Locating a town, river or natural feature that is central to the story is successful maybe 20% of the time.

Customer Reviews:

Portentous subtleties of modern American language and law .......2007-07-15

Harvard's Mary Ann Glendon provides one of those rare insights into why we are the way we are, exposing what is patently aberrant when externally viewed, axiomatic by force of habit and an educational system catering to consumerism. Central is our language, that way to the soul of how we view our world and us in it, through rights talk. American rights talk is stark, simple, polarizing, legalistic, excessively bestowing the rights label with exaggerated insular absoluteness of hyper-individualism expressed as unbounded wants and desires with utter silence on personal, civic or collective responsibilities. Nearly every social controversy is framed as a clash of absolute rights now with self-correction denied and compromise unlikely in our winner take all arrangement. What Hamilton said would happen, happened, and with a vengeance. While the Bill Of Rights (he opposed) was to clarify what the federal government would not do, it has been transformed as a route to governmental expansion via what government must do for us. "Rights" are now paramount and the touchstone of legitimacy. (Just listen to the list of rights we never knew we had in our current presidential debates.)

Glendon illuminates a turn taking place in the 50's when principle focus of the Court was not personal liberty but the division of authority and allocation of power between States and the national government. Congressional legislation (subject to the people's will) during the New Deal shifted to the Supreme Court (protected from the people's will) and their creation of new or expanded rights with the stroke of a pen - a fundamental swing away from the people and in the process of our governance. The "test case" became a replacement for time consuming political engagement. The results of which might go either way depending on the Court's composition - liberal or conservative - a tyranny of nine instead of one Madison warned against as a tyranny nonetheless.

Glendon elucidates our legal system's inability to extrapolate long-term effects of their decisions, or recognizing entities other than individuals, corporations and States, i.e. communities are invisible. Not infrequently, opinions of justices sound as if from another galaxy not bothered by common sense. America's emphasis of Locke's property language is contrasted with Europe's Rousseauian (though equally idyllic) perspective (Rousseau wasn't any more complete than Locke), making all the difference, with Europe often appearing a good deal more rationally conditional than absolutist America. Interestingly, ideas in political philosophy can be seen to display creative inventiveness not unlike that found in science and technology, allowing new results from old principles or discoveries of alternate ways to interpret them. And like technology's creation of penicillin or the atomic bomb, outcomes are not always positive. To this reader it was a shock to find rights do not deserve the altitude they've acquired in America - and a gift. An excellent book every politician and lawyer should take intravenously, before they bury us all.

NECESSARY LECTURE.......2007-03-19

Mary Ann Glendon, professor of Law at Harvard University, one of the most eminent scholars in contemporary America, in this book writes about the legal cultural tradition of the United States, up until the actual absolutization of the rights claim, sign of a rising individualism that is part of the rich US tradition but that it's a serious challenge for our actual democracy. A necessary lecture for every American that takes care of our common life.

In Defense of Legitimate Rights.......2007-01-08

Among other fascinating points, Professor Glendon maintains that there has been a peculiarly American tendency to exaggerate two rights, to the detriment of others:
* "From the very beginning, the absoluteness of American property rhetoric promoted illusions and impeded clear thinking about property rights and rights in general" (p. 25).
* "Though the 'preferred' rights change from time to time, American legal discourse still promotes careless habits of speaking and thinking about them....exaggerated absoluteness of our American rights rhetoric is closely bound up with its other distinctive traits - a near-silence concerning responsibility, and a tendency to envision the rights bearer as a lone autonomous individual....why does our rhetoric of rights so often shut out relationship and responsibility, along with reality?" (pp. 41 - 46)
* "The major impetus for recognizing a legal right to privacy was the invention, in the nineteenth century, of instantaneous photography, and the development of rapid means of communication....In 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Roe v. Wade that the...right of privacy was 'broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy'....In the abortion cases that followed and enlarged the scope of Roe, privacy began to show the same thrust toward absoluteness that had characterized property rights in an earlier era....In the United States today,...poor, pregnant women...have their constitutional right to privacy and little else. Meager social support for maternity and childraising...leave such women isolated in their privacy" (pp. 49 - 65).

One section of Professor Glendon's book is reminiscent of the final episode of "Seinfeld," where Jerry and friends are prosecuted for failing to come to someone's aid:
* "Our habitual silences concerning responsibilities are...apt to remain unnoticed....the authors of the leading treatise on torts categorically declare that one has no legal duty to come to the aid of another person in mortal danger....An Olympic swimmer out for a stroll walks by a swimming pool and sees an adorable toddler drowning in the shallow end. He could easily save her with no risk to himself, but instead he pulls up a chair & looks on as she perishes. When beginning law students learn that the despicable athlete was perfectly within his legal 'rights,' their reaction is generally one of surprise and disbelief....In a long line of decisions, bystanders have consistently been exempted from any duty to toss a rope to a drowning person, to warn the unsuspecting target of an impending assault, or to summon medical assistance for someone bleeding to death at the scene of an accident" (pp. 76 - 79).

Professor Glendon's preface could well have served as the conclusion:
* "A near aphasia concerning responsibilities makes it seem legitimate to accept the benefits of living in a democratic social welfare republic without assuming the corresponding personal and civic obligations....what is needed is not the abandonment, but the renewal, of our strong rights tradition....The prospects for such a project are not especially bright....the seedbeds of civic virtue (as many political theorists refer to families, religious communities, and other primary social groups) are not in peak condition" (pp. xi - xii)

Individualism versus reality.......2001-11-09

Glendon puts into perspective the overuse of the idea of individual "rights" and how the emphasis in our legal system not only leads to absurdity, but to the inability of society to discuss very real social problems.
As she puts it (I paraphrase) this discourse is based on the way few men, and fewer women, actually live. For we all live in a complex milieu of family and friends and neigbors, not in isolation.
I especially like her dissection of Rousseau's "primitive man" and how this idea has become the distorted, (again I paraphrase) insisting that when these philosophers discussed the freedom of the primitive man, they somehow neglected to realize that they never bothered to see how the primitive woman or child fit into his life--or into their own life.
This argument is the basis for communitarian ideas, not socialism.
And in an "either or" type argument too often seen in discussions of rights (society versus individual rights) she posits a "but": the idea of individual rights in a complex society where these things are balanced by others, not eliminated.

An Evenhanded Critique of Rights.......2001-07-12

Rights talk is ubiquitous in American culture; from the highest political office holder to the lowest convenience store clerk, people invoke rights, often in absurdly stark and overbroad forms, as a way of expressing their desires, interests, and moral and political views. Often such rights claims lead people to say things that are clearly false and/or absurd, such as that they have the right, without qualification, to do whatever they want whenever they want. This custom is made all the more curious by the fact that people seem to know so little about rights themselves. What are rights? Where do they come from? Who has what rights, and how can you tell? When posed with such questions even some rights theorists fall silent.

The curious nature of American rights talk has led an increasing number of people to reject the existence of rights altogether. Rights have, of late, come under serious sustained attack from a variety of quaters, and it's hard not to feel a little sympathy with such critiques. Talk to a guy who thinks you have an absolute sui generis right to own a sub-machine gun a few times, and you will begin to understand why Bentham called rights "nonsense on stilts." Still, rights, and rights talk, lay at the heart of our republic, as well as of the recent attempts to hold foreign dictators to universal moral standards. It would be most unfortunant if a concept that has done so much good in the world turned out to be incoherent.

According to Glendon's book, the problem it not with rights themselves, but with what she calls the "American rights dialect," the particular way in which we speak of rights here and now. She argues that contemporary American rights talk is separated both from the European tradition, and from the tradition of the founding fathers, not only in its simplicity, but also in its extreme individualism, absoluteness, insularity, and inarguability. American rights talk ignores the connections (logical and moral) that rights have with duties, it denies the social and communal aspects of people, and it rejects the need for rights to be limited according to various circumstances. In effect American rights discourse has become a parody of itself, leaving it vulnerable to attack from those who would deny rights altogether.

It's clear from Glendon's other works (e.g. A World Made New) that she does believe in rights. While this book is largely critical of rights talk in its current form, it should be viewed, I think, fundamentally as an attempt to restore rights to their proper place in our political framework, lest we get fed up with the whole thing and throw out baby with bathwater. For this reason I would recommend this book both to advocates and opponents of rights. The former will emerge from it with a fuller deeper understanding of how rights work, while the later may discover that there is more to rights than they had previously thought.

Average customer rating:
Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. (book reviews): An article from: The Hastings Center Report
Carl E. Schneider
Manufacturer: Hastings Center
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Science | Subjects | Books
Science & Technology | Subjects | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B00091XK5M
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Hastings Center Report, published by Hastings Center on May 1, 1992. The length of the article is 1196 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. (book reviews)
Author: Carl E. Schneider
Publication: The Hastings Center Report (Refereed)
Date: May 1, 1992
Publisher: Hastings Center
Volume: v22 Issue: n3 Page: p43(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Rights Talk : The Impoverishment of American Political Discourse

Average customer rating:

Rights Talk : The Impoverishment of American Political Discourse
Mary Ann Glendon
Manufacturer: Free Press, The
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OEQ1AA

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books