Menasha Public Library (Elisha D. Smith)

First in his class, a biography of Bill Clinton, David Maraniss

eng

individual biography

index present

non fiction

First in his class

bibliography

31737634

David Maraniss

a biography of Bill Clinton

Drawing on letters, documents, and interviews with several hundred people whose paths intersected with Clinton's at every level - family, friends, girlfriends, classmates, teachers, campaign workers, staff, and associates - Maraniss explores the evolution of the personality whose greatest strengths are also his greatest weaknesses: his talent for politics and careful networking, his perseverance and optimism, his ever eagerness to please, his tendency to shade the truth, and his insatiable appetite for life and ideas. It is a definitive study of Clinton's rise from obscure, provincial Arkansas, of the clear development of his ambitions, and of the Faustian bargains he made along the way. Maraniss looks at the split personality of Hot Springs, where Baptist churches and gambling casinos, all-American ideals and vaporous spas, were next-door neighbors - and how these childhood influences worked their way into Clinton's persona