The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life

by Fred Siegel

In this 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--restoring law and order, cutting taxes and radically reducing the welfare rolls--demonstrated that Gotham was indeed "governable" (a matter of doubt until his election) and that our major cities might again become vibrant and dynamic places to live after thirty years of middle-class flight. Someone who has worked with Giuliani as well as studied him, Siegel describes this colorful figure as an "immoderate centrist," who, like the city he came to embody, evokes contradictory emotions. For some, he was a ruthless autocrat during his years at city hall; for others, he was a heroic figure who took on the vested interests that had dragged the city down. Siegel regards Guiliani 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 own enormous ego serve the city's well-being. He promoted the virtues of duty and sacrifice, but was sometimes unable to honor these values in his personal life. He was suspicious of those outside his immediate circle, but he also placed this tribal ethos in the service of 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. Siegel's story culminates with a dramatic account of September 11, 2001, revealing how Giuliani's s eight years in office had prepared him and the city to rise to this tragic occasion. Siegel concludes with a look at how Guiliani's successor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has handled his legacy and at what the future might hold for America's Mayor.

Genres: Politics, Biography, Nonfiction, Audiobook

374 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2005

About the author

Fred Siegel was an American historian and conservative writer who was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative think tank which focuses on urban policy and politics. He served as a professor of history and the humanities at Cooper Union and was a contributor to numerous publications, including The New York Post (where he had a weekly column), The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Commonweal, Tikkun, and Telos.
Siegel served as the political advisor to several political candidates in New York City, including former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. He was the author of several books, including The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life and The Future Once Happened Here: New York, D.C., L.A., and the Fate of America's Big Cities.
Siegel was the father of writer and editor Harry Siegel. Fred Siegel died from complications relating to a series of infections in Brooklyn, New York, on May 7, 2023, at the age of 78.

Reviews

[Mikey B.]

VIVA Giuliani!!!

A riveting book about Giuliani and the transition of New York. Obviously the author is no 60's liberal and greatly admires Giuliani. One cannot but admire Giuliani's courage and adversity against all opponents - he was certainly no weathervane politician. During the reign of David Dinkins there was a headline in one of New York's rag newspapers: "Dave Do Something" - this would not happen during the Giuliani era.

This book points out well and clearly, that the solution to problems (in this case urban) is not to just keep putting money into it. Accountability must be put into the structure of government. Giuliani did this with the police department, the garbage (sanitation) and less successfully with the education department. He also cut-off welfare payments and put people to work. There will be a Giuliani legacy in New York for years to come.

Even without 9/11 Giuliani would be considered a great mayor of New York.

- Note 1: Don't read this book for details of Giuliani's personal life - this is a political and sociological work of Giuliani's impact on New York

- Note 2: There are numerous (a dozen or so) errors - grammatical and otherwise in my edition

- Note 3: I have visited New York several times in the past (during the late 1970's and early 80's). New York at that time was intimidating and it was DIRTY (of course it's always been an exciting and happening place). I returned in 1998 (and have been back on several visits since) and immediately noticed the difference when my son and I got off the bus at Port Authority. It was CLEAN, and thank goodness - all those porn shops were gone on 42nd street.

[Ray]

Even non-New Yorkers are aware of Mayor Giuliani's leadership following the attack of 9/11. But this book details much more of Giuliani's years as Mayor of N.Y. Siegel portrays the Mayor as a tireless and shrewd tactician and a visionary leader. The book shows how NY was turned around during the Giuliani years, seeing improvements in crime reduction, private housing ownership increases, welfare reduction, quality of life improvements, economy, budget, education, etc., all accomplished while being able to reduce taxes. People who see educational improvement and poverty reduction as being proportional to spending may not like what they read here, since Giuliani was able to forge improvements by introducing work-fare vs. welfare and fighting for educational program improvements by cutting waste. Many interesting stories and details, and you have to look favorably upon the Giulaini approach to governance when compared to Mayor Lindsey, Mayor Dinkins, etc.

While generally very supportive of Giuliani, his self-promoting and self-absorbed side, and his enormous ego do come out in the book. There's not much here to convince you that being a good mayor make him a good Presidential candidate, and the 2008 presidential primary results reflected, but it's a good description of leadership can impact how cities thrive or die.

[David]

The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life by Fred Siegel, someone who has worked with Giuliani as well as studied him throughout his career, tries to portray both the positive and negative aspects of his character. We learn about what drives "America's Mayor" in his career as a prosecutor and eight years as Mayor of New York City. He has been referred to by some as a ruthless autocrat while others see him as an heroic figure who cleaned up the city from crime and corruption. The author considers Giuliani a shrewd tactician and compares him to the title character in Machiavelli's The Prince with an enormous ego. The Mayor really came into his own and endeared himself to millions with his larger-than-life response to the attacks on 9/11. He enjoyed almost universal support for how he was seemingly everywhere at once throughout the crisis. The author has written a fascinating character study as well as a recent history of New York City, the politics of control of city government, corruption in office as well as in the welfare programs, crime and more. Giuliani's accomplishments were many but included cleaning up corruption, reducing crime, reducing the fraud in the welfare system, and generally improving the fiscal health of the city. He certainly had his detractors who said he was :"not my mayor" and even pursued impeachment (sound familiar?)! Since leaving office many of his accomplishments have been reversed or blunted as cruel under a new administration that seems intent on restoring the previous social welfare, high taxes, and corruption because that's what some politicians do.

[J]

A law-and-order tribute to Giuliani.

[Genevieve]

Well, yes, this book is twenty-one years old now and is a little on the dated side, knowing the ups and downs that Rudy Giuliani has had professionally and politically since its writing. That being said, it was an interesting examination of the Giuliani mayoral years of New York City and also provides a good look at life in NYC before he became leader.

In my opinion, Fred Siegel has a level of admiration for the former mayor and somewhat glosses over Giuliani’s failings. It’s also clear that the the author has no time for Democrats like former mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins. I would say that Siegel doesn’t quite hold Giuliani accountable for maintaining the city’s status as a sanctuary city when he could have taken measures to put that concept to rest when he was mayor but inexplicably chose to play politics instead. The writer only gave this important subject a short paragraph towards the very end of the book.

As much as I was looking forward to reading it, this book just felt a bit flat to me. Maybe it was the black and white “newspaper style” of writing or who knows. It was on the dry side and took me far too long to wade through it than it should have.

[David Szatkowski]

This book focuses on Giuliani as mayor of NYC (late 90s-2001). The writer is clearly right of center (if say, 100+ is far right, -100 far left, I'd say the writer is +20, so center right). The said, this is not all praise of Rudy, he is criticized. But the stronger criticism is for the Democratic leadership of the same era, with perhaps some justification. It is a tragedy to see what has happened to Giuliani in the last four years, he is clearly not the man of prior years. A worthy read about the history of Giuliani and that era of NYC as well.

[Liam Philbin]

An interesting take on the place of Giuliani in NYC history that acts as a counterbalance of sorts to more left-leaning accounts (that is to say, this book certainly leans right).

The lack of citations/general academic polish is a little disappointing for what Siegel is attempting to measure up against though.

[Michael]

This is a great book on the Giuliani administration and its effect on New York. The author is clearly very favorable to Giuliani and incredibly critical of prior administrations. I'm not sure whether to call it bias: from what I can tell, for decades, New York was a city falling in on itself, a prisoner of special interest groups, racial identity politics, and a sort of uber-entitlement liberalism. Giulian's policies accomplished a great deal, and whether one supports him or not, it's rather hard to argue with the evidence of how life changed during his time.

[Amanda Morris]

This is a wonderful biography of Rudy Giuliani and an analysis of his era. My favorite part of the book, and the part that I think is the most powerfully written, is the ending centering around the 9/11 terror attacks. It's one of those books that makes me sigh and think of what could have been, had he been the GOP standard-bearer instead of Bush/McCain/Romney.

[Dan]

This book was interesting because it illustrated to me Guiliani's "broken windows" policy approach to NY City problems in the early 90s -- his overhaul of the city's schools, subway and police department -- but it is an almost completely uncritical look at the mayor and SO poorly written that I subtract three stars. Also points off for his editor -- there were typos everywhere!

[Karl]

This is a great book to understanding New York City politics. Giuliani cleans up New York City by standing up against institutionalized bureaucracy, mafia run businesses and taking on crime. Lastly, the book discusses how New York came together on 9/11.

[Patrick Butler]

Way too laudatory of Rudy but a good primer on how his mayoralty did transform a hostile,dangerous,and oftentimes plain crazy place into a safe,vibrant,and once again important place.