A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Carl Bernstein's stunning portrait of Hillary Rodham Clinton shows us, as nothing else has, the true trajectory of her life and career, with its zigzag bursts of risks taken and safety sought. Marshaling all the skills and energy that propelled his history-making Pulitzer Prize reporting on Watergate, Bernstein gives us the most detailed, sophisticated, comprehensive, and revealing account we have had of the complex human being and political meteor who has already helped define one presidency and may well become, herself, the woman in charge of another.

Bernstein clarifies the often amazing dynamic of her marriage to Bill Clinton, shows us the extent to which Hillary has been instrumental in the triumphs and troubles of his governorship and presidency, and sheds light on her own political brilliance and her blind spots, especially her suspicion and mishandling of the press, and her overt hostility to the opposition that clouded her entry into the capital.

In the emotional and political chaos of the Lewinsky affair, we see Hillary, despite her immense hurt and anger, standing by her husband, evoking a rising wave of sympathy from a public previously cool to her. It helps carry her into the Senate, where she applies the political lessons she has learned. It is now her time. As she decides to run for president, with her husband now her valued aide, she has one more chance to fulfill her ambition for herself: to change the world.

This book enables us, at last, to address the questions Americans are insistently, even obsessively, asking about Hillary Clinton: What is her character? What is her political philosophy? Who is she? What can we expect of her?