Overview
To The Washington Post, he's "The Last Political Showman of the 20th Century."
Bill Clinton has called him "the real Slick Willie."
Ronald Reagan's secretary of state George Shultz called this famously liberal politician "a man of his word" and endorsed his successful candidacy for mayor of San Francisco.
Indeed Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both called upon him for advice and help. He is Willie L. Brown, Jr., and he knows how to get things done in politics, how to work both sides of the aisle to get results. Compared to him, Machiavelli looks meek. And drab.
In Basic Brown, this product of rural, segregated Texas and the urban black neighborhoods of San Francisco tells how he rose through the civil rights movement to become the most potent black politician in America through his shrewd understanding and use of political power and political money. He adapts the lessons he has learned so they can be used by anyone — black, female, male — intent on acquiring political power.
And this master of the political deal demonstrates why deals are not enough, and that political power grows only when public good is being done. Willie Brown shows how some of the most far-reaching and socially advanced legislation in American history — like gun control, legalized abortion, gay rights, and school funding — was carried out under his guidance and on his watch, and tells of the ingenuity, the political machinations, and the personal perseverance that were required to enact what now seems to many to be obvious legislation. These are stories of breathtaking, sometimes hilarious ruses and gambits that show that even the most high-minded legislation needs the assistance of the skills of a shark, which is what Willie Brown often sees himself as.
Basic Brown is a compendium of insights and stories on the real forces governing power in American political life that will leave you looking at politics anew. It is also the inspiring and funny story of the rise of a gawky teenager in mail-order shoes and trousers who rose to entertain royalty and schoolchildren, superstars and supersize egos, the saintly and the scholarly, while working to transform and open American politics. If you ever wanted to learn how to be slick, a shark, a do-gooder, and a man of your word, Willie L. Brown, Jr., is the storyteller for you.
Synopsis
To The Washington Post, he's "The Last Political Showman of the 20th Century."
Bill Clinton has called him "the real Slick Willie."
Ronald Reagan's secretary of state George Shultz called this famously liberal politician "a man of his word" and endorsed his successful candidacy for mayor of San Francisco.
Indeed Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both called upon him for advice and help. He is Willie L. Brown, Jr., and he knows how to get things done in politics, how to work both sides of the aisle to get results. Compared to him, Machiavelli looks meek. And drab.
In Basic Brown, this product of rural, segregated Texas and the urban black neighborhoods of San Francisco tells how he rose through the civil rights movement to become the most potent black politician in America through his shrewd understanding and use of political power and political money. He adapts the lessons he has learned so they can be used by anyone — black, female, male — intent on acquiring political power.
And this master of the political deal demonstrates why deals are not enough, and that political power grows only when public good is being done. Willie Brown shows how some of the most far-reaching and socially advanced legislation in American history — like gun control, legalized abortion, gay rights, and school funding — was carried out under his guidance and on his watch, and tells of the ingenuity, the political machinations, and the personal perseverance that were required to enact what now seems to many to be obvious legislation. These are stories of breathtaking, sometimes hilarious ruses and gambits that show that even the most high-minded legislation needs the assistance of the skills of a shark, which is what Willie Brown often sees himself as.
Basic Brown is a compendium of insights and stories on the real forces governing power in American political life that will leave you looking at politics anew. It is also the inspiring and funny story of the rise of a gawky teenager in mail-order shoes and trousers who rose to entertain royalty and schoolchildren, superstars and supersize egos, the saintly and the scholarly, while working to transform and open American politics. If you ever wanted to learn how to be slick, a shark, a do-gooder, and a man of your word, Willie L. Brown, Jr., is the storyteller for you.
The New York Times - Matt Bai
Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times is less Brown's memoir than a West Coast version of Machiavelli's Prince, a seminar for young politicians by a master of the craft…in this charming memoir by a charming man, exaggeration is part of the fun. The book roughly approximates the experience of sitting across from Willie Brown over a long breakfast, refilling one's coffee as he works his way through the tall tales and tangents that made him one of the great machinators of his age. Like the man himself, Brown's version of the political memoir is always engaging, sometimes confounding and never the least bit slow.
Editorials
Matt Bai
Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times is less Brown's memoir than a West Coast version of Machiavelli's Prince, a seminar for young politicians by a master of the craft…in this charming memoir by a charming man, exaggeration is part of the fun. The book roughly approximates the experience of sitting across from Willie Brown over a long breakfast, refilling one's coffee as he works his way through the tall tales and tangents that made him one of the great machinators of his age. Like the man himself, Brown's version of the political memoir is always engaging, sometimes confounding and never the least bit slow.—The New York Times
Ron Fimrite
…[an] engaging autobiography…[Brown's] roguish ways are reminiscent of such other flashy mayors as Marion Barry of Washington and Jimmy Walker of New York. Like them, he makes no pretense of piety. But unlike them, he's never run afoul of the law. He has so nimbly crossed racial barriers that he stands as something of a pioneer, and yet he has demonstrated no particular desire to be remembered as an African American leader. Indeed, many of his closest friends are white. So let's just say this man is one of a kind, and be done with it.—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Brown, "[b]lack, urban, flamboyant, politically adroit," is part hardworking politician and part legend. "A political career [had] never entered [his] mind," when the teenaged Texas country boy arrived in San Francisco in 1951. Thirty years later, Brown became Speaker of the California Assembly, a triply historic event: he won with bipartisan support, was the first African-American to do so and served longer than any else in the position; then from 1996 to 2003, he was San Francisco's mayor. Brown's autobiography is a candid and fascinating how-to-succeed-in-politics, crammed with down-to-earth reality tips not common in civics texts. He advises how to dress, work a party and manage one's own scandals. But Brown did not achieve political power by merely window dressing and shares his mastery of the finer and lesser points of political strategy. He revisits the major controversies of his reign in the assembly and the successes of which he is most proud. "The real Slick Willie," Clinton called him; Brown says simply, "I'm unique." His always lively and often self-serving account is a candid tutorial for aspiring politicians and ordinary folk who enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at how local (and sometimes national) government works. Illus. (Feb.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
Once labeled "the real Slick Willie" by Bill Clinton, Brown, now heading his own Institute on Politics and Public Service, served 30 years in the California State Assembly and in 1996 became the first African American mayor of San Francisco. Here, he offers anecdotes of his days as a politician along with some piercing commentary on the 2008 elections.
—Ann Burns