Sign-In
Cart
Pothole Confidential: My Life as Mayor of Minneapolis
Hardcover
Political BiographiesRegional: MidwestUnited States Politics
Publisher Price: $24.95
ISBN13: 9780816699407
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: Apr 22 2016
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.30
Height: 1.20 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
A pajama party at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport inadvertently helped launch R.T. Rybak's political career (imagine a rumba line one hundred protesters long chanting, We deserve to sleep, hey!), but his earliest lessons in leadership occurred during his childhood. Growing up in a middle-class neighborhood, attending private school with students who had much more than he did, spending evenings at his family's store in an area where people lived with much less, he witnessed firsthand the opportunity and injustice of the city he called home.
In a memoir that is at once a political coming-of-age story and a behind-the-scenes look at the running of a great city, the three-term mayor takes readers into the highs and lows and the daily drama of a life inextricably linked with Minneapolis over the past fifty years. With refreshing candor and insight, Rybak describes his path through journalism, marketing, and community activism that led to his unlikely (to him, at least) primary election--on September 11, 2001. His personal account of the challenges and crises confronting the city over twelve years, including the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge, the rising scourge of youth violence, and the bruising fight over a ban on gay marriage (with Rybak himself conducting the first such ceremony at City Hall on August 1, 2013), is also an illuminating, often funny depiction of learning the workings of the job, frequently on the fly, while trying to keep up with his most important constituency, his family.
As bracing as the fresh air campaign that swept him into office, Rybak's memoir is that rare document from a politician: one more concerned with the people he served and the issues of his time than with burnishing his own credentials. As such, it reflects what leadership truly looks like.
1 different editions
Also available
Also in
Political Biographies
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Hardcover
American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump
Bird, Kai
Goldmark, Susan
Hardcover
One Man in: The Explosive Firsthand Account of the Lone Special-Ops Commando Who Fought Off a Major Terrorist Attack in Kenya
Craighead, Christian
Hardcover
Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America
Murphy, Chris
Hardcover
Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded Usaid
Enrich, Nicholas
Hardcover
The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation
Clyburn, Jim
Hardcover
Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution
Hemingway, Mollie
Hardcover
Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider's View of Dealing with a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People
Freeland, Chrystia
Hardcover
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Paperback
Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America's Elite Universities
Stefanik, Elise
Hardcover
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Anderson, Scott
Hardcover
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the Cia, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
Talbot, David
Paperback
Don't Tell the President: The Best, Worst, and Mostly Untold Stories from Presidential Advance
Becker, Jean
Collamore, Tom
Hardcover
Dreams of a White Snow Lion: The Remarkable Life, Vision, and Deeds of the Dalai Lama
Dhargye, Sherab
Bianca, Mariateresa
Hardcover
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Anderson, Scott
Paperback
The Assassination of Leon Trotsky: Espionage, Scandal, and the Crime of the Century
Melton, H. Keith
West, Nigel
Hardcover
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Browder, Bill
Paperback
The Road to Unafraid: How the Army's Top Ranger Faced Fear and Found Courage Through
Struecker, Jeff
Paperback
Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary
Griffin-Gracy, Major
Meronek, Toshio
Paperback
Finding the Third Way: Lessons in the Politics of Civility from My Journey Through History
Davis, Lanny J.
Hardcover
Unleash Your Humanity: Where Personal Awakening Becomes Collective Change
Sherif, Yasmine
Tavis, Scott
Paperback
How to Test Negative for Stupid: And Why Washington Never Will (Large Print) (Large Print Edition)
Kennedy, John
Paperback
Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress
Rinehart, Lorissa
Hardcover
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Paperback
Slow Poison: IDI Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State
Mamdani, Mahmood
Hardcover
The Game Changer: How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight
Ralston, Jon
Hardcover
The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist
Day, Dorothy
Paperback
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Hardcover
Starting Somewhere: Community Organizing for Socially Awkward People Who've Had Enough
Douglass, Roderick
Paperback
This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story (Large Print Edition)
Gershkovich, Evan
Paperback
The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Luzzatto, Sergio
Hardcover
A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla
Paperback
Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines
Jean-Pierre, Karine
Hardcover
Glory, Grief, and the Gavel: An Inside Guide to Running for Speaker of the House
Leganski, John
Hardcover
My Struggle: English Translation of Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf, Kamphf English Kampt
Hitler, Adolf
Murphy, James
Paperback
G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner): J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
Gage, Beverly
Paperback
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
Larson, Erik
Hardcover
Even After Everything: How One Humble Kibbutznik Believed in Heaven While Living Through Hell
Frischman Fischer, Betsy
Paperback
Hey Yang, Where's My Thousand Bucks?: And Other True Stories of Staggering Depth
Yang, Andrew
Hardcover
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill
Millard, Candice
Paperback
Ni Venganza Ni Perdón: Una Amistad Al Filo del Poder / Neither Revenge Nor Forgiveness: A Friendship on the Edge of Power
Scherer Ibarra, Julio
Fernández Menéndez, Jorge
Paperback
Reconcilable Differences: The Unlikely Political Alliance of John F. Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt
Perry, Barbara A.
Hardcover
With a Name Like Chief: Reflections on Recovery and Identity Through the Seven Sacred Teachings
Chief, Kevin
Slayen, Stu
Paperback
The Architect of Espionage: The Man Who Built Israel's Mossad Into the World's Boldest Intelligence Force
Katz, Samuel M.
Hardcover
The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America
Whitaker, Mark
Paperback
Churchill's Secular Creed: Empire, Zionism, and Islam's Complicity in the Holocaust
Warraq, Ibn
Paperback
Detenido/Detained: El Diario de Supervivencia Y Determinación de Un Niño
Morales, Gerardo Iván
Esperanza, David
Paperback
Outed: Lbj's Confidant and the Arrest That Transformed a Presidency
Stewart-Winter, Timothy
Hardcover