Boss
Richard J. Daley of Chicago

Mike Royko must have had balls of steel to write this book in 1971, during the heyday of the Chicago Machine! Royko knew the city and all those running it, inside-out. The intimate political details of all who ran "The Machine" could not have been well received when this book debuted. I still miss re......more

I got this book out of a stack from my mom. It was only after I started reading it, and was led to do some outside research that I discovered it's a classic of city journalism. This hard hitting account of the reign of Mayor Richard J. Daley illuminated many things about the great city of Chicago. I......more

At the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago, Henry Adams perceived a world-historical shift bubbling up in human consciousness. He famously described this with two images: The Virgin Mary and the Dynamo. For Adams, up to that point in Western history, The Virgin Mary was an image that could neatly su......more

This devastating account of the first Daley regime works as a kind of history of Chicago from the fifties through the sixties. I say that because Daley had a desire to have absolute control when possible and domineering influence when the previous proved difficult. Its not hard to see why Daley want......more