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Rating: Summary: The other slick Willie Review: I found this book to be very interesting and informative. Without a doubt it gave me a look into the life and times of Willie Brown and the state of California. From growing up under the repressive laws of Jim Crow and segregation to becoming one of the most powerful men in California,Willie Brown is a courageous and complex figure in California's history. In the tradition of "showmen politicians" like Adam Clayton Powell, Huey P. Long, and Lyndon Johnson, Brown is a part of a by-gone era. With term limits well in place, we will never see the likes of such a powerful and personable politician. President Clinton could not have said it better when he arrived in Sacramento and met Willie Brown in person for the first time. He stated, " now i have finally met the real slick Willie". Whether demon or devil, Willie Brown changed the face of legistlative politics in Califonia and paved the way for the state to expand in many other areas. After reading this book, you wonder how California can survive without Willie Brown.
Rating: Summary: The other slick Willie Review: I found this book to be very interesting and informative. Without a doubt it gave me a look into the life and times of Willie Brown and the state of California. From growing up under the repressive laws of Jim Crow and segregation to becoming one of the most powerful men in California,Willie Brown is a courageous and complex figure in California's history. In the tradition of "showmen politicians" like Adam Clayton Powell, Huey P. Long, and Lyndon Johnson, Brown is a part of a by-gone era. With term limits well in place, we will never see the likes of such a powerful and personable politician. President Clinton could not have said it better when he arrived in Sacramento and met Willie Brown in person for the first time. He stated, " now i have finally met the real slick Willie". Whether demon or devil, Willie Brown changed the face of legistlative politics in Califonia and paved the way for the state to expand in many other areas. After reading this book, you wonder how California can survive without Willie Brown.
Rating: Summary: left-leaning love letter to a fascinating political figure Review: Parts of the book are overly detailed, yet some parts are quite sparse. The portrait of Brown's hometown of Mineola, Texas is riveting yet there are few details of what Brown was like as a child -- readers wanting to find out what books, philosophers or anything that inspired Brown will be left wanting. We must settle for the unsupported statement that he was a voracious reader. Also, there seems to be a mismatch in focus -- over half of the book is devoted to Brown's career before becoming speaker when he really was a marginal figure. Perhaps a dozen pages are devoted to obscure delegate credentialling details about the '72 convention that could have been covered in a fraction of the space.On the objective side, the book does call Brown to task for several ethical and race-baiting missteps, and he largely accepts the common view of Brown as a fixer extraordinare who made the trains run on time in the legislature at the expense of an agenda. The author also perceptively highlights why Brown succeeded tactically in holding his Speakership for so long, sometimes by pulling absolute political miracles. This is when the book is at its best, showing how Brown has become one of the most powerful, savvy figures in California political history. On the minus side (for those who prefer their history unfiltered by the author's personal politics) references abound throughout the book to "ultra right conservatives", "hard right conservatives" and the like but there are no similiar references to figures on the left; Jesse Unruh and Ronald Reagan have "cronies" while Brown has friends. While clearly critical on occasions, at other times the author blatantly bends over backwards to make Brown look good. When Brown made some vicious personal public remarks about then Governor Duekmajian (sp?) the author criticizes Brown yet excuses him by saying he was just doing so to satisfy the Democrat Assembly members who disliked the Duke, yet its impossible (for me at least) to believe Brown's Assembly delegation ever included people who demanded hateful comments from the Speaker. Throughout the book, Brown is portrayed as a consummate, off-the-cuff showman who's unmatched with his rapier-like comments, yet we're expected to believe this one was done calculatingly to satisfy people who insisted that Brown engage in brutal personal insults. This doesn't hold water. The author also uncritically accepts Brown's assertion that he went to law school on a whim and says if he hadn't seized this seemingly random impulse, he never would have gone into politics. This seems a stretch to say the least, largely because the author paints a quite vivid picture of Brown the showman who lives for thie limelight -- it's virtually impossible to imagine this truly unique personality not in politics. That, and the fact that he was running for office by the time he was 28 indicate to me that like Bill Clinton, Willie Brown was intent on being a politician at an early age. In the "give Willie the benefit of the doubt" category, outrageous remarks that can be fairly categorized as inciting violence are excused because Brown, according to the author, was so personally devastated by RFK's assissination a few weeks before. Yet the author provides nothing to support this strange assertion. It seems reasonable to conclude the author is going to extremes to excuse some of Brown's most inexcusable conduct. At the end, the author drops all pretense of objectivity and discloses that he was a McGovern delegate at the '72 convention (which explains why, although doesn't justify, the excessive focus on that convention's minutae) and highlights Brown's greatest achievement as stymying the agendas of numerous Republican governors during his Assembly career. The book was enjoyable largely because the subject is so fascinating. Parts of it are extremely well written, filled with strong analysis and the author undeniably did a tremendous job researching the book, but even more, in landing firsthand interviews with the major participants. Nonetheless, the book is unevenly focused, lavishing attention on Brown's flamboyance at the expense of personal insights. There is also a sometimes subtle but unmistakable bias from beginning to end in favor of Brown's leftist politics and Brown himself.
Rating: Summary: An insanely detailed overview of an amazing career Review: Richardson has overlooked no musty archive, no potential interviewee, and no pesty detail in his amazing book about Assemblyman, Speaker, Speaker Emeritus, and now Mayor Brown. An essential read to understand Northern California and California politics from the seventies to the present day.
Rating: Summary: A Great Political Biography Review: Willie Brown is a politician regarded as both a political reformer and a modern political boss, a sometime political progressive and sometime defender of corporate interests, and a man of humble background who flaunts a flashy lifestyle. The book, "Willie Brown", presents a study of a man's contrasts and complexities. This biography neither glorifies nor lambastes its subject. The reader is allowed to thoroughly understand the gray areas between the good and evil which is the human nature of most public figures. We learn about Willie Brown and the events shaping his life and histroy. We learn that Willie Brown sought being the center of attention from childhoold and how this trait was internalized through lifelong quests for leadership. Willie Brown emerged from a life of gambling and nightlife into a life or politics and nightlife. Controversy has followed Willie Brown's life. Branded as both a radical liberal and a conservative coalition builder, Willie Brown has learned that power and personal feelings can change and that these changes can be used for advantage. Readers learn how Willie Brown, upon becoming Speaker of the California House of Representatives, was adept at maintaining power. The author demonstrates that Willie Brown enjoyed political power games more for the sake of power than for setting policy. Willie Brown played the legislative power game very well for a long time. When he finally lost the power game, he exited the legislature by becoming a big city Mayor. This book presents a remarkable study of one of America's most resilient politicians.
Rating: Summary: left-leaning love letter to a fascinating political figure Review: Willie Brown may be an interesting figure, but you won't find much here about him that you didn't see in the newspapers over the years. Richardson goes over his impoverished youth in Texas, and his stunning rise in California, but doesn't go very far into how it occurred. For example, Brown was said to be an intellectual, a voracious reader in his youth. Richardson says virtually nothing about WHAT Brown read. We learn nothing of the thinkers or writers Brown admired. Nothing is said about his work habits, his passions, his view of history, the kind of society he would like to shape. Over and over we are told of Brown's love of beautiful women, his "flamboyance", his expensive tastes. But who among us does not love beautiful women? And what, precisely, makes wearing an expensive suit flamboyant? If an expensive suit is flamboyant, then George Bush and Lloyd Bentsen must be flamboyant. Is it not important to know what a politician thinks, in addition to what he wears and drives?
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