An autobiography of Bill Clinton. Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe IV on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. In 1998, as a result of issues surrounding personal indiscretions with a young woman White House intern, Clinton was the second US president to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

President Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe IV on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, three months after his father died in a traffic accident. When he was four years old, his mother wed Roger Clinton, of Hot Springs, Arkansas. In high school, he took the family name. As a delegate to Boys Nation while in high school, he met President John Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden. The encounter led him to enter a life of public service. Clinton was graduated from Georgetown University and in 1968 won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. He received a law degree from Yale University in 1973, and entered politics in Arkansas. He was defeated in his campaign for Congress in Arkansas's Third District in 1974. The next year he married Hillary Rodham and in 1980 and Chelsea, their only child, was born. Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee's Senator Albert Gore Jr., then 44, represented a new generation in American political leadership. For the first time in 12 years both the White House and Congress were held by the same party. But that political edge was brief; the Republicans won both houses of Congress in 1994. In 1998, as a result of issues surrounding personal indiscretions with a young woman White House intern, Clinton was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was tried in the Senate and found not guilty of the charges brought against him. He apologized to the nation for his actions and continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for his job as president.

A massive book crammed with assessments of social and political life not just in America but also around the world, including the UK. In here we learn that the Clintons immediately felt like 'old friends' when they went out to dine with Tony and Cherie Blair for the first time. President Clinton admired the new British Premier, seeing in him not just a friend but also a force of good in a Europe that to American eyes seemed squabblingly divided. Most of the book, however, is focused on America and its place in the world, so we are taken from Vietnam to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and learn how much manoeuvring Clinton had to do in order to get Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat to shake hands for the cameras. Much soul-searching is involved when Clinton gets embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky story, which almost tore his family apart. The book is a candid, revealing account of how a small-town boy rose from humble beginnings to become the world's most powerful man - and managed to smile even through the bad times. (Kirkus UK)