Customer Reviews

The American Mayor: The Best & the Worst Big-City Leaders

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The subject matter sounds interesting, but Holli's writing style is dry and plodding. Some of these mayors sound like interesting characters, but they don't come to life in this book. The leadership analysis at the end is for die-hards only. Though the book was promoted in general-interest news articles, it's not going to generate much enthusiasm outside the ivory tower.

An interesting book, which rates Fiorello La Guardia, the Little Flower, as the best Mayor in the history of the United States. The author is right-- La Guardia was certainly one of the best if not the best and an inspiration to all of us. I liked the book found it somewhat interesting, but, another reviewer said, some of his characters did not really jump to life. (The review of La Guardia did.) Nevertheless, I found it worth reading.

I found myself in agreement with some of the ratings, and in disagreement with others.

I can not understand the law rating of Ed Koch, who turned New York around.

I also disagree with his low ratings of some depression era Mayors shows a bias against the old style ethnic politicians like James Michael Curley of Boston, rated as one of the worst. Most Bostonians rate him as the best. He championed the poor Irish immigrants, and opened the doors of city hall to them. Curley was a populist, and the review shows a bias against populist Mayors.

Frank Hague, (Boss Hague) of Jersey City, is rated as the second worst Mayor in history. He was certainly not a good Mayor. However, the voters of Jersey City would beg to differ that he was near the bottom. They elected him for a stunning 30 years, a record no modern day Mayor can hope to match. Hague enjoyed, as the book states, long vacations on the Jersey Shore and no one can find out how they were paid for. He may have been corrupt.

But, if we was corrupt, so, sadly, were many others of that period, so that fact alone cannot make him the second worst in history.

But what kept Hague re-elected for thirty years was his championing of a hospital for the poor. The Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital, named after the Mayor's mother, provided free top notch medical care to thousands of poor women throughout the county for decades. In an era befeikoch@bryancave.comore the New Deal when it was not fashionable for government to come to the aid of the poor, Mayor Hague's hospital provided them with one of the best maternity hospitals in the country.

His hospita should keep him from being rated at the very bottom.

Depite my difference, the authors chronicle well the story of American big city Mayors, and is a great teaching tool to starting Mayors. I have recommended it to the new Mayors I meet.

Jim Fiorentini, Mayor, Haverhill, Massachusetts

Cleveland Mayor (now Congressman) Dennis Kucinich was one of the best & most fascinating ... not one of the worst.

"There is little debate," wrote Cleveland Magazine in May 1996, "over the value of Muny Light today. Now Cleveland Public Power, it is a proven asset to the city that between 1985 and 1995 saved its customers $195,148,520 over what they would have paid CEI." Kucinich's move also preserved hundreds of union jobs. In 1998, city council granted Kucinich amnesty, stating that he had "the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city's municipal electric system."