The president of larger-than-life ambitions and appetites whose term
defined America at the close of the twentieth century
Bill Clinton: a president of contradictions. He was a Rhodes Scholar and
a Yale Law School graduate, but he was also a fatherless child from
rural Arkansas. He was one of the most talented politicians of his age,
but he inspired enmity of such intensity that his opponents would stop
at nothing to destroy him. He was the first Democrat since Franklin
Roosevelt to win two successive presidential elections, but he was also
the first president since Andrew Johnson to be impeached.
In this incisive biography of America's forty-second president, Michael
Tomasky examines Clinton's eight years in office, a time often described
as one of peace and prosperity, but in reality a time of social and
political upheaval, as the culture wars grew ever more intense amid the
rise of the Internet (and with it, online journalism and blogging);
military actions in Somalia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo; standoffs at Waco
and Ruby Ridge; domestic terrorism in Oklahoma City; and the rise of
al-Qaeda. It was a time when Republicans took control of Congress and a
land deal gone bad turned into a constitutional crisis, as lurid details
of a sitting president's sexual activities became the focus of public
debate.
Tomasky's clear-eyed assessment of Clinton's presidency offers a new
perspective on what happened, what it all meant, and what aspects
continue to define American politics to this day. In many ways, we are
still living in the Age of Clinton.
