Giuliani
The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
What happened to Rudy Giuliani?
Andrew Kirtzman, who has been following Giuliani since the 1990s, answers that question in this “masterful and engrossing” (The Guardian) biography that “cuts through the myth and caricature that has too often defined Giuliani” (Los Angeles Times).
Rudy Giuliani was hailed after 9/11 as “America’s Mayor,” a national hero who, at the time, was more widely admired than the pope. He was brilliant, accomplished—and complicated. He conflated politics with morality, made reckless personal choices, and engaged in self-destructive behavior. A series of disastrous decisions and cynical compromises, coupled with his need for power, money, and attention gradually ruined his reputation, cost him political support, and ultimately damaged the country.
Kirtzman, who was with Giuliani at the World Trade Center on 9/11, conducted hundreds of interviews to give us an insightful portrait of this polarizing figure from the beginning of his rise to his high-profile role as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. Giuliani was a celebrated prosecutor, a transformative New York City mayor, and a contender for the presidency. But by the end of the Trump presidency, he was reviled and ridiculed after a series of embarrassing errors and misjudgments. He was a significant figure in both of Trump’s impeachments and ended up widely ostracized, facing both legal jeopardy and financial ruin.
This is the “lively new biography” (The New Yorker) of how it all began and how it came crashing down.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The same "fanatical sense of righteousness" that propelled Rudy Giuliani's rise set him on the road to ruin, according to this richly detailed biography. Journalist Kirtzman (Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City) describes how Giuliani first gained the spotlight by prosecuting Mafia bosses and Wall Street traders in the 1980s. Elected mayor of New York City in 1993, he succeeded in reducing crime, but his aggressive defensive of the NYPD in the police killings of unarmed Black men fueled the city's racial tensions, according to Kirtzman, who also suggests that the Giuliani administration's distribution of faulty radios to firefighters resulted in unnecessary deaths on 9/11. After failing to overturn the mayoral term limit, Giuliani fell short in campaigns for the U.S. Senate and the White House. Meanwhile, his tumultuous personal life was punctuated by three divorces, strained relationships with his two children, and a drinking problem that only seemed to worsen after he became Donald Trump's personal lawyer. Though Kirtzman's research impresses, the book's abrupt shifts from heavy topics (such as allegations by one Black lawmaker that Giuliani is "an absolute, out-of-control racist") to more gossipy matters can be jarring. Still, this is a comprehensive and alarming portrait of Giuliani's downfall.
