A book endorsement: American Pharaoh - Richard J Daley's Battle for Chicago

If you really want to understand Chicago, or at least better understand it - I strongly recommend reading American Pharaoh

by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor.

I mentioned the book on the blog a few weeks ago, and only just finished it now (to be fair it is 624 pages and it has been a busy few weeks). The book deals with the entirety of the first Mayor Daley's life, from his upbringing in Bridgeport, through his rise to power, his impact on the city - both positive and negative.

The book does a good job of providing multiple perspectives on the most controversial aspects of Mayor Daley's tenure at the head of Chicago politics and policy - the '68 convention, anti-war protests, integration fights in the schools, public housing, response to Martin Luther King's Chicago campaign, his influence on national presidential politics etc.

It certainly isn't a light read, nor is it a page turner in the vein of Candice Miller's (fantastic) River of Doubt, but it feels good to finish. At the end, I'm left with a more comprehensive understanding of the political and social reality that has led to the city I live in today.

A primer on Chicago politics?

I'm currently reading American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J Daley - his battle for Chicago and the nation by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor right now and it is absolutely incredible.

I am only 280 pages in (a few months into Daley's second term), and already well-worth the purchase.

I've pulled out a few quotes that I think are interesting or thought provoking (and will continue to do so) here.  A few of the most interesting:

“Look at the Lord’s Disciples,” Daley would later say in response to a charge of corruption in City Hall. “One denied Him, one doubted Him, one betrayed Him. If our Lord couldn’t have perfection, how are you going to have it in city government?”

In April 1917, the Chicago Real Estate Board met and — concerned about what officials described as the “invasion of white residence districts by the Negroes” — appointed a Special Committee on Negro Housing to make recommendations. On this committee’s recommendation, the board adopted a policy of block-by-block racial segregation, carefully controlled so that “each block shall be filled solidly and . . . further expansion shall be confined to contiguous blocks.” Three years later, the board took the further step of voting unanimously to punish by “immediate expulsion” any member...

“Make no little plans,” Burnham, a prominent architect and principal designer of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, advised. “They have no magic to stir men’s blood.”

Anyone else already read this? Anyone else currently reading?