Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics
By Joyce Purnick
Public Affairs £15.99, 272 pages
FT Bookshop price: £12.79

If all goes as expected, in November Mike Bloomberg will be elected mayor of New York City for the third time. The richest man in the city he governs, with an estimated wealth of $20bn, is again using this money to fund a lavish campaign. If he wins, he will have spent at least $250m for the privilege of holding one of the most aggravating and intoxicating jobs in US politics.

But running for a third term carries an even higher price, according to Purnick’s biography. To do it, Bloomberg worked to overturn the city’s two-term limit, despite previously supporting it. “He’s a different guy than he was a year ago,” Purnick quotes a friend. “He breached his own code of ethics.”

Purnick, a New York Times reporter, is mostly admiring. “Ed Koch cracked the eggs, [Rudy] Giuliani assembled the ingredients, and then Bloomberg made the omelette,” she writes of his role in New York’s resurgence.