well, actually i grew up with one of the worst of them, al berland was the worst one. he was later convicted of arson. he was, you know, a pretty rough character and this guy had been a childhood friend and told me his whole story and that was about as close as i came to that side. yes. >> the potential scope of this book is sprawling. you have so many issues that probably could be the subject of a separate book and i'm just curious, what were the historians choices you made in deciding what to leave out. >> mainly my editor's choice what to leave out. it was originally 200 pages longer than it is now. and she did a lot of cutting. it was my father's story and the contractor buyers story. i kind of felt like you needed to understand the daily machine and you needed to understand public housing and, you know, the black sub machine in chicago. and, let's see, the battle over open occupancy legislation, the role of the national association of real estate boards, martin luther king's crusade. i felt like you had to know all of those things so actually i kind of put everyth