Books like Bill Clinton by Nigel Hamilton

Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, is the quintessential baby boomer: on the one hand blessed with a near-genius IQ, on the other, beset by character flaws that made his presidency a veritable soap opera of high ideals, distressing incompetence, model financial stewardship, and domestic misbehavior. In an era of cultural civil war, the Clinton administration fed the public an almost daily diet of scandal and misfortune. While he was a scholar, he was also a husband, father, and student. His story is as much a personal story as it is the story of modern America. Behind the closed doors of the house on the hill above Park Avenue in Hot Springs, the struggle between Clinton's stepfather and mother became ultimately unbearable, causing Virginia to move out and divorce Roger Clinton. Dreading confrontation, Bill Clinton excelled in almost every field save athletics. Yet, he set his cap for the star student at Yale, young Hillary Rodham, seducing her with his dreams of a better America and an aw-shucks grin. He becomes a law professor straight out of college, a young attorney general of his state and within two years is set to become the youngest-ever governor of Arkansas, at only thirty-two. Yet, always, there is a curse, a drive toward personal self-destruction--and with that the destruction of all those who are helping him on his legendary path. His affair with Gennifer Flowers strains his marriage and later nearly scuttles his bid for the presidency. He is thrown out of the governor's office after only one term and suffers a life-shaking crisis of confidence. Though with the stalwart help of a female chief of staff he regains his crown, it is clear that Bill Clinton's charismatic career is a ceaseless tightrope walk above the forces that threaten to pull him down--the most potent of them residing in his own being.

First publish date: 2002