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Big Bill Thompson, Chicago, and the Politics of Image. By Douglas Bukowski. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. x, 273 pp. Cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-252-02365-X. Paper, $21.95, ISBN 0-252-06668-5.)
Most urban historians have viewed Chicago mayor William Hale Thompson as a corrupt windbag who provided some Jazz Age comic relief for cynical observers of American politics. He was a buffoonish demagogue who, for all his many faults, offered a respite from the civic righteousness of good-government reformers. In his new study of the Windy City executive, Douglas Bukowski recognizes Thompson's ample limitations, but he also realizes the importance of viewing him in the evolving context of Chicago during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Bukowski presents Thompson not as a venal blowhard, but as a political chameleon who changed colors in...