Fiorello
written and
A biography of Fiorello La Guardia who started his political career in the House of Representatives before gaining national fame as the mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1945.
Read Time: ~5.4 hr
Mayor For Life
by Marion Barry, Jr. and Omar Tyree (2014)
About this book
Four-time mayor of Washington, DC, Marion Barry, Jr. tells his shocking and courageous life story, beginning in the cotton fields in Mississippi to the executive offices of one of the most powerful cities in the world. Known nationally as the disgraced mayor caught on camera smoking crack cocaine in a downtown hotel room with a mistress, Marion Barry Jr. has led a controversial career. This provocative, captivating narrative follows the Civil Rights activist, going back to his Mississippi roots, his Memphis upbringing, and his academic school days, up through his college years and move to Washington, DC, where he became actively involved in Civil Rights, community activism, and bold politics. In Mayor for Life, Marion Barry, Jr. tells all--including the story of his campaigns for mayor of Washington, his ultimate rise to power, his personal struggles and downfalls, and the night of embarrassment, followed by his term in federal prison and ultimately a victorious fourth term as mayor. From the man who, despite the setbacks, boldly served the community of Washington, DC. This is his full story of courage, empowerment, hope, tragedy, triumph, and inspiration.
Setting / LocationNew York City
Story EraModern Era
Protagonist / CoreMayor For Life Lead Character
Readers who enjoyed this also loved
Crazy town
Robyn Doolittle
Chronicles the life and political career of the controversial Toronto mayor, from his early days as a flamboyant city councillor to a mayor embroiled in controversy.
Dark Horse
Steve Neal
A thin, flat, ineffectual biography of the upstart 1940 Republican presidential candidate and wartime champion of One WorM. In the introduction, Chicago Tribune White House correspondent Neal (Tom McCall, The Eisenhowers) strikes all the customary notes: Willkie's support for aid to the Allies, contra Republican isolationism; his ""fresh and appealing"" personality, his ""tousled"" hair and rumpled clothes and ""Hoosier twang,"" his energy and drive; the acidulous anti-Willkie comments (""barefoot boy from Wall Street,""etc.); his post-defeat trajectory--the foreign missions, support for civil rights, political collapse. But the single interpretive peg in the text is that, civil rights apart, Willkie was a trimmer: ""Despite his strong principles, Willkie's decision to join a fraternity provided an early indication that he was willing to bend them when there were personal considerations."" (His girl-friend insisted.) ""In later years, Willkie was eulogized as the political rarity who would rather be right than be president, yet when confronted with a test of principle in the fall of 1940, he buckled to expediency""--and, behind in the campaign, denounced Roosevelt as a warmonger. This turnabout Willkie later referred to, famously, as ""campaign rhetoric"": Neal notes that Republicans were incensed, but makes no further comment. He also leaves the impression--perhaps deliberately, perhaps for want of direction--that Willkie was indeed a media and PR phenomenon: Luce, Cowles (Look), and Reid (N.Y. Herald Tribune) support catapulted him into national prominence; packing the galleries with ""We want Willkie!""--ites, and loosing a flood of telegrams, clinched the nomination. (The heating-up war was, or wasn't, crucial.) The pre-1940 and post-1940 sections are weak for other, opposite reasons. Neal makes no attempt to trace the transformation of Willkie, the successful Akron lawyer (1919-29) and prominent, out-of-step Democrat into the functionary and chief of Commonwealth & Southern, the nation's largest utility holding company (1929-40) and FDR-critic-cum-internationalist; the one thing about which we hear at some length (""A Love in Shadow"") is his attachment to Herald Tribune book editor Irita Van Doren (who probably was, however, a considerable influence). Post-defeat, the mass of undifferentiated detail tends to blur the outlines--and, as regards Willkie's purported blind passion for Madame Chiang, to detract from his accomplishments. In particular, Neal doesn't see the power, in 1943, of Willkie's One World vision. There are some new political scraps (many, however, from aggrieved or otherwise unfriendly sources); Neal incorporates considerable material published since the last Willkie bio; but in contrast with Richard Norton Smith's recent life of Dewey, which adds substance and interest to a slight, unpopular figure, this makes its subject smaller than life.
Az Tihrān tā Kārākās
Manucher Farmanfarmaian and Roxanne Farmanfarmaian
Born into Iran's most powerful aristocratic family - so feared by Khomeini that the entire clan was blacklisted - Prince Manucher was raised in a vast harem with his thirty-five brothers and sisters, one of whom married the head of Iran's communist party, while another, who was once foreign minister, lost his life to the upstart Shah's jealousy. Farmanfarmaian was the primary government negotiator with the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company until its convulsive nationalization by his cousin Mossedeq in 1951. Later, as a director of the National Iranian Oil Company, he pioneered - against the Shah's wishes - the partnership that resulted in OPEC. This is the first account by one of OPEC's original crafters of the politics and intrigue surrounding the international development of the oil industry. With the flair of a modern-day Arabian Nights, Blood and Oil brilliantly renders the tensions between the excesses of the ancien regime and Iran's increasingly reactionary religious establishment. Prince Manucher's close relationships with everyone from the last Shah to the teary-eyed Mossadeq allow him to provide a fresh portrait of the Pahlavi reign and the revolution that brought it down. But the real revelation in these pages is his new perspective on British oil imperialism, and its brutal effect on twentieth-century history.