Fire on the Prairie

"A master journalist’s fascinating chronicle of the Harold Washington mayorality."

- The Chicago Sun-Times

Published by Henry Holt, this book, my first, won the Carl Sandburg Award for Non-Fiction in 1992. It also won the Chicago Sun-Times’s Non-Fiction Book of the Year award that same year. The book was a Chicago best-seller.

"Gary Rivlin saw clearly what other journalists were blind to, and reported what they had non-reported. He was to the Chicago political scene what I.F. Stone was to the national picture."

- Studs Terkel

"Colorfully, intimately, Fire on the Prairie shames and instructs as it entertains, weaving a skein of anecdotes and vignettes into a civic conversation about race and power."

- Jim Sleeper, The Washington Post Book World

"Fire on the Prairie is a master journalist’s fascinating chronicle of the Harold Washington mayorality elections and the intervening ‘Council War.’ The book is rich in intriguing behind-the-scenes incidents. Rivlin makes the reader live those years."

- Leon Despres, The Chicago Sun-Times

"A fascinating tale of racial hostilities and political betrayals."

- Black Enterprise

"Gary Rivlin has woven a vivid and compelling story that helps to remind us all how the subject of race is always percolating below the surface, ready to explode. A wonderful book."

- Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here