FIRE ON THE PRAIRE is a good example of why the American reading public's narrow focus on national politics is so unfortunate. There are thousands of political stories in the cities, counties and states of America that are never told because the presumed target audience is too small. Thankfully, Gary Rivlin decided to tell the story of Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor.

The book will appeal to anyone interested in politics, even if Chicago is of no particular interest. City-level politics is politics at its most raw. This story, set in the 1980's, features (literally) brawling aldermen, overtly race-based electoral appeals, bribery, graft and other interesting forms of corruption, and the more creative bad-mouthing that we'll likely ever hear on the national stage. The cast of characters - real political figures - read like they walked out of central casting. The impervious, heroic Mayor Washington, the nefarious but canny Ed Vrdolyak, the bumbling Jane Byrne, the barbaric Ed Burke, the big-talking con man Clarence McClaine, the ego-maniacal Jesse Jackson and on and on.

An unusual feature of this book is that while Washington is the central character, the book is almost not about him so much as Chicago politics in the 1980s. A third of the book devotees equal time to Washington and his arch-nemesis, Vrdolyak. Indeed, the Vrdolyak is painted with greater depth and may actually be quoted more than Washington. Washington comes off as pretty much impervious to corruption, pettiness, and most of the regular dynamics of Chicago politics - but he also comes off as inaccessible. The book plunges immediately into the political story without the customary 80 pages devoted to the central subject's early life. Rivlin never writes, "Washington thought..." nor does he report on conversations that occurred between two people, neither of whom subsequently spoke with Rivlin. The overall effect is double-edged - the story comes off as more credible but also Washington himself is left as something of a mystery.

A more serious problem with the book is that its fascinating emphasis on pure politics comes at the neglect of an in-depth exploration of Washington's policies. Policies are certainly mentioned, but I retained more about how Washington made a difference in the life of his city from an hour-long radio show on him that from this 420-page book.

The absence might be explained by what Rivlin explains is the difference between "white reform" and "black reform." Rivlin basically explains that white reformers are more concerned with process, where as black reformers are more concerned with results. White reformers may decry cronyism and call for the elimination of patronage jobs. Black reformers call for a more proportional share of the jobs. FIRE ON THE PRAIRE is written with a greater sympathy for what Rivlin would characterize as the black style of reform. The overarching point of the book was that Chicago's racial divisions were so great that residents (especially white residents) voted with their ethnicity against all considerations including logic and self-interest.

Washington's second term was cut tragically short by his untimely death. Rivlin does a great job of creating the sense of unfinished business as he continues the story of Chicago's political turmoil for 20 pages after Washington's death, until a new, interim mayor was elected. At that point I wanted to keep reading, but I also wanted to know what Washington was going to do next. Unfortunately we'll never know.

Good book that will stand as an statement of the times, and what times they were. When I first moved to Silicon Valley, I heard Ron's name more than a few times within the first week of being there. Later, I had the pleasure of working with this gentleman. He was and is a classic, timeless character whom I admire.

One of the aspects that the book did not emphasize enough was the good service and care that Ron provided his portfolio companies. Ron and Bob offered much to those that wanted it, including help with getting customers, business development, and further rounds of financing. While Angel I performed better than Angel II (although Angel II was in some good companies including PayPal, that recently went public), I think it needs to be pointed out that this early stage private equity fund was a very unique opportunity for high net worth individuals at the time. Also, it played an important role in making dreams come true for many people at the time.

This book also will be useful to those in the future who might be interested in raising a private equity fund from high net worth individuals. The way the fund was put together, marketed, and the leveraging of the limited partners is a good lesson in business creation. While what Ron did was not necessarily unheard of or untried, he successfully raised and operated the highest profile pooled angel capital fund ever. While this book does not always paint the prettiest picture, its worth reading for further understanding of the times.

Despite a sensationalistic title and a poorly designed cover, The Plot to Get Bill Gates is a wonderful piece of reporting. Rivlin, while an obvious admirer of the technology tycoons, presents a fairly unbiased (though tilting a little in favor of Bill Gates) story about the growth of Microsoft, the computer industry in general, and the ever growing group of anti-Microsoft competitors. It does a very good job of describing all the players in this game, following the industry for the past twenty years, and explaining the technology so even computer illiterates like myself can understand. Rivlin obviously did a tremendous amount of research, interviewed hundreds of technologists, and really put his findings together well. This book is well written (though the flow is sometimes interrupted when Rivlin seems to remember something he forgot to add earlier and makes a long tangent out of it), very interesting (though nothing terribly original is presented if you are well acquainted with the technology industry), and entertaining. I would highly recommend it for people who want to learn more about Gates, other technology tycoons, the technology industry, or just want a look at how competitive companies operate and interact.

Reading this book makes me wonder if the climate around the "robber barons" was so intense. Without a doubt, Bill Gates has become the focus of admiration and ire throughout the computer industry. This book attempts to answer the question "why?".

Few come out of this work unscathed by the unflattering portrayal Rivlin gives computer industry heavys. Gates is scrutinized intensely in the beginning of the book, during the rapid ascent of Microsoft, but the vast majority of the book concerns itself with "the people who hate him." Leaders from giants Novell, Oracle, Wordperfect, and others are reduced to defining themselves by what they are not: Bill Gates.

For whatever reason, only two women discussed (Heidi Roisen and Kim Polese) are portrayed in a mildly positive light. Perhaps all this just comes down to testosterone after all.

The book contains an interesting history about products as well as people: OS/2, MS Word, Excel, NetWare, and, of course Windows. There is a particularly long description of the genesis of Java, perhaps the only thing Gates has not been able to either crush, co-opt, or corrupt. Java's story alone is worth the price of the book.

Tell-all books rarely deserve more than a middle-of-the-road rating. However, this one was well written enough and well researched enough to "sneak up" to a four-star assessment. For those interested in the subject, this book is well worth your time.

I just finished this page-turner, and I have to say that it was a fascinating and funny read. Rivlin included more minutiae about Bill Gates' personality than I have read elsewhere. The key to this book is its balance. Rivlin includes a high degree of detail about Sun's McNealy, Oracle's Ellison, Novell's Noorda, and others, to give the reader the proper sense of perspective, to wit, that the moguls and wanna-be-moguls of the computer industry are all a pretty ambitious, ideosyncratic, and twisted bunch. What becomes fascinating about Bill Gates, in particular, is that as the "world's richest man," our media age is suddenly interested in his every breath and move (What did he have for breakfast? What is his toothpaste brand?, etc). The book is also very timely by coming out during the antitrust mess known as "Microsoft II". Rivlin takes the reader on a brief tour of other industries, to show that cut-throat competition is actually a norm in our capitalitic culture. Bottom line is that we may "hate" our capitalistic-shark CEO's, but we also wish that we had bought that 10,000 shares of Microsoft 10 years ago, so that we could be millionaires today. I highly recommend this book, and love it for its wit, readability and balance.

A fine attempt, but it comes up lacking. First, the book is short and reads quick. I had the feeling that this would have been better off being a Washington Post 3 part series (boring series though). All characters are sketchy and I never found myself caring about any of them. I found dot.bomb a much better read.

The dot-com rise and fall that you can read in a couple of sittings. Rivlin does a really good job of telling the story of the madness of the dot-com bubble, and then its precipitous fall, through the story of one man, Ron Conway, who invested in more Internet startups (240) than anyone else. Rivlin has a good eye for detail, and his descriptions of some of the crazier ideas that Conway funded alone are worth the price of the book. You know things are going to end badly but that's the fun of this book, Rivlin somehow manages to make it all suspensful.

Rivlin has written a marvelous, entertaining peek into the strange alice-in-wonderland world of high tech finance. Rivlin didn't allow himself to be co-opted by his subjects and the result is a frank and honest view that will make some insiders wince, but delight anyone trying to understand what makes Silicon Valley tick.