A Prayer for the City - Hardcover

Bissinger, H. G.; Bissinger, Buzz

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067942198X ISBN 13: 9780679421986

Publisher: Random House Inc, 1997

Synopsis

Relates the efforts of Philadelphia's Mayor Edward Rendell to tackle the challenges of crime, trade unions, the loss of industry, and racial conflict

About this title

Review:

Praise for Buzz Bissinger's A Prayer for the City

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
Finalist for the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award

"An extraordinary book, an insider's account of the daily workings of a big-city administration." --The New York Review of Books

"A fascinating, humane portrait of the ills of urban America." --The New Yorker

"A full-scale portrait of a struggling American metropolis that brings to mind such classics of urban reportage and analysis as J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground and Nicholas Lemann's The Promised Land." --The New York Times Book Review

"Brilliant and compelling. A Prayer for the City movingly captures the poignancy--the hope and heartbreak--of urban government in America." --Robert A. Caro

"There has never been a better portrait of how a big city functions and how one mayor operates to push, pull, and prod the cement of bureaucracy as well as the souls of individual citizens toward a better place. This is actually more of a novel than it is current history, filled with insight and anecdotes that make you feel good about politics and people, too." --The Boston Globe

"Superb. . . . Bissinger's writing, sparse and urgent, always shines." --The Miami Herald

About the Author:

Buzz Bissinger spent five and a half years writing this book, during which time he had exclusive access to Mayor Ed Rendell's administration. From 1981 to 1988 he was a reporter at The Philadelphia Enquirer, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, and later he worked for the Chicago Tribune. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1985-86 and is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. He is the author of the acclaimed bestseller Friday Night Lights.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 067942198X
• ISBN 13: 9780679421986
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 408