"Siegel presents a positive but not uncritical opinion of the Giuliani record, which is
of interest in itself but especially if Giuliani runs for president."Booklist

"The Prince of the City is a remarkable account of the Giuliani years by our best writer on urban
affairs. Anyone interested in how the dead hand of ideology came near to crippling our largest city must
read this book."U.S. News &World Report

In the first post-9/11 account of the career of the man who established himself as "America's Mayor" in
the dark days after America was attacked, Fred Siegel shows how Rudy Giuliani's successes in New
York set a promising example for the rejuvenation of our major cities. Someone who has worked with
Giuliani as well as studied him, Siegel regards Giuliani as a shrewd tactician and artist of the possible
who could have stepped out of the pages of Machiavelli's The Prince. A self-promoting,
self-absorbed man, the mayor made his enormous ego and tribal ethos serve the city's well-being,
promoting ideals that transcended New York's ethnic politics and business as usual. The Prince of
the City is at once a fascinating character study, a history of New York over the last forty years, and
a classic inquiry into the issue of how cities thrive or die.