Bill Clinton: An American Journey

by NigelHamilton (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $7.59

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.28

  Nigel Hamilton brings all the magisterial authority he brought to his Whitbread-winning biography of Monty, and all the talent for tracking down and verifying hidden, controversial material that he showed in JFK: Reckless Youth, which topped the American bestseller charts for months, in this new biography of Bill Clinton. Born into a 'white trash' family in backwoods, racially segregated Arkansas, he suffered under an alcoholic, violent stepfather, on one occasion having to fight him physically in order to protect his mother. As a youth he would become inspired by the civil rights movement, particularly Martin Luther King, and as a student became a long-haired hippy musician, involved in radical politics and also discovering free love. Hamilton tells the story of how Clinton's sexual and political career developed hand in hand. This is a book about sexual politics on many levels, showing how Clinton's life was formed by changing attitudes. Here is a man who, far from being a sexual predator or exploiter of his position - like JFK - was swept to power because women adored him, whether Democratic party helpers, the women of the American electorate - or indeed Hilary Clinton, whose powerfully manipulative personality is shown to have been vital to his success,. Clinton has been polygamous throughout his adult life, and Hamilton's fascinating portrait of a marriage examines Hilary's relationship with his quite astonishing number of girlfriends. The book also covers his time at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, his political apprenticeship and his rise to power, culminating in his election as President in '92.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.28

  Nigel Hamilton's account of Bill Clinton's early life and career - Bill Clinton: An American Journey - drew widespread praise for its candid reconstruction of the archetypal baby-boomer's extraordinary political ascent, from humble beginnings in small-town Arkansas to the winning of the White House at age 46 in November 1992. Now, in Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency , Nigel Hamilton takes us on another journey: charting the experience of the 42nd President as he took presidential oath of office; and, how he fared thereafter in the piranha pool of Washington D.C. In riveting narrative, Hamilton charts what was possibly the greatest disaster and re-reinvention of a president in office in modern times. The Clinton Administration began ominously badly - kicking off with the worst Transition in living memory. The presidency then deteriorated through a series of fiascos at every level, from domestic policy and congressional relations to international failures such as Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda and the failure to act over Bosnia. The disaster over health care reform capped a litany of errors; in fact, when the Democrats lost their majority in both houses of Congress in 1994 for the first time in forty years it looked as if the President's days in office were numbered. How Bill Clinton faced up to his failures, and refashioned himself in the White House thereafter - from the Oklahoma City bombing to the peace he established in Bosnia, the battle with Speaker Newt Gingrich over the nefarious shutdown of the U.S. Government in 1995 and Clinton's trouncing of his Republican opponent Bob Dole in the 1996 election - is thus an epic one. It is a story that climaxes with William Jefferson Clinton becoming the first Democrat to win re-election to the White House since Franklin Roosevelt. With a thriving U.S. economy and hard-won wisdom in international affairs and in combating the rise of terrorism, Clinton would begin his second term as the undisputed, immensely popular leader of the Western world - aware, however, that terrors ant treason within America loomed as large as dangers abroad. Insightful, balanced, prodigiously researched and a joy to read, Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency is set to become, alongside its prequel, the classic story of Clinton's extraordinary effort to be a modern president, in a modern world - and a chronicle one of the most extraordinary reversals of fortune in modern American politics.