Product Description

Condoleezza Rice, one of the most powerful and controversial women in the world, has until now remained a mystery behind an elegant, cool veneer. New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller peels back the layers and presents a revelatory portrait of the first black female secretary of state and President George W. Bush’s national security adviser on September 11, 2001. Drawing on extensive interviews with Rice and more than 150 others, including colleagues, family members, government officials, and critics, the book relates in more intimate detail than ever before the personal voyage of a young black woman out of the segregated American South, and offers dramatic new information about the events and personalities of the Bush administration. In the process, with great insight, Bumiller tells the sweeping story of a tumultuous half-century in the nation’s history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99898 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-13
• Released on: 2009-01-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780812977134
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
“Powerful . . . an intimate portrait of Condoleezza Rice that will set the standard for all future writing about this fascinating and complex woman.”
–Doris Kearns Goodwin

“A compelling portrait of the country’s first black female secretary of state . . . a cautionary tale about the gap between ambitious presidential appointees and their unwillingness to speak truth to power.”
–The New York Times

“In this singular, fascinating, well-reported, and well-written book, one of our finest journalists shows us heretofore unseen facets of the Condoleezza Rice story.”
–Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage

“Measured, insightful and comprehensive . . . [Elisabeth Bumiller] brings a keen eye to Rice.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“A careful, well-documented new.”
–Los Angeles Times


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Review
“Powerful . . . an intimate portrait of Condoleezza Rice that will set the standard for all future writing about this fascinating and complex woman.”
–Doris Kearns Goodwin

“A compelling portrait of the country’s first black female secretary of state . . . a cautionary tale about the gap between ambitious presidential appointees and their unwillingness to speak truth to power.”
–The New York Times

“In this singular, fascinating, well-reported, and well-written book, one of our finest journalists shows us heretofore unseen facets of the Condoleezza Rice story.”
–Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage

“Measured, insightful and comprehensive . . . [Elisabeth Bumiller] brings a keen eye to Rice.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“A careful, well-documented new.”
–Los Angeles Times

About the Author
Elisabeth Bumiller, a Washington reporter for The New York Times, was a Times White House correspondent from September 10, 2001, to 2006. She is the author of May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India and The Secrets of Mariko: A Year in the Life of a Japanese Woman and Her Family. She wrote much of this book as a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and as a transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband, Steven R. Weisman, and two children.


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Mediocre biography
A good biography should provde interesting personal insights not readily known and engaging examples that show character strengths and flaws. Once an author interjects his or her own political bias, as this "liberal" author clearly does on more than one occasion, then the reader feels as if the biography has turned into political analysis, which is precisely what happens in this book about midway through.

The author does a nice job describing the childhood, adolescence, family, and personal crises of Ms. Rice through and including her appointment as provost as Stanford. But then the author decides to simply discuss in chronological order the various political events that Ms. Rice was involved in as she entered the realm of politics and ultimately became Secretary of State. From that point on the book becomes not biography, but a superficial and biased presentation of various political events into which the author intersperses quotes from Ms. Rice. It sounded more like a series of newspaper articles than a biography.

In short, the first half of the book through the events at Stanford is worth reading. You can simply skim the rest and skip to the Conclusion, which is rather pedestrian.

There are no great insights provided in this book, but in the early chapters there is a wealth of personal and fascinating details that makes this book worth reading at all.

Not a Bush fan but a Condi fan after reading this book
I was never a Bush, certainly no supporter of the PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY, the most pompous concept and surely the downfall of America. But this book on Condi reveals a feisty, intelligent woman with a mind of her own. You soon realize that Condi has given her colleagues in the administration a run for their money. One thing this book reveals is that had Condi not been there, perhaps Rumsfeld and Cheney would have been even more destructive in their already negative and irrational ways. Perhaps she has to be a bit of a sycophant to Bush to keep her job, but this book reveals a Condi that has a mind and an agenda all her own, and all good for the American people, read the book. And this is from me, a strong supporter of liberal values.

Kessler's was better...this reeks of access journalism
This book was about what I expected: a bit of a fluff job largely devoid of hard-hitting analysis. I'll admit that Ms. Rice doesn't come out looking very good -- as previous reviewers have noted, she is caught time and time again trying to finesse some outrageous Bush administration failure or statement. And some might argue that it is a strength of the book that Bumiller leaves so much between the lines, as it were.

But it's troubling in the end when a reporter like Ms. Bumiller spends 6 years writing glowing reports of a White House (those who are familiar with her infamous "White House Letter" column at the Times know what I'm talking about)and is then granted unprecedented access to one of the White House's key players. Can you say "quid pro quo"? The fact that Ms. Bumiller pulls her punches here makes this issue even more glaring.

Ms. Bumiller once wrote that she was afraid to ask the White House difficult questions on the eve of the Iraq war. It appears that here she is afraid to draw the tough conclusions. And that's too bad, because she sure did get good access on this one.