Book description
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. Nigel Hamilton was born in 1944, and
studied history at Cambridge University. His first major biography, The
Brothers Mann, was critically acclaimed both in Britain and the USA, and
widely translated. Monty, his first 3-volume official life of Field
Marshal Montgomery, won the Whitbread Award for Biography and the
Templar medal. JFK; Reckless Youth was a bestseller on both sides of the
Atlantic in 1992, selling over a quarter of a million copies in
hardback.
