First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton

Maraniss, David

ISBN 10: 0671871099 / ISBN 13: 9780671871093

Published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995

About this Item

512 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index, Inscribed on free end page. Cover has some wear and soiling. Small tear at top of spine. Some edge soiling. David Maraniss (born 1949) is an American journalist and author, currently serving as an associate editor for The Washington Post. He received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1993 for his coverage of then-candidate Bill Clinton during the 1992 United States presidential election. Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss received an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the Spring commencement ceremony on May 16, 2014. Maraniss began his journalism career as a high school student in Madison, Wisconsin, where he covered antiwar protests and high school football for a local daily newspaper. He joined The Washington Post in 1977 and has served it in various capacities since. The Post assigned him the job of biographer for their coverage of 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama. Inscribed to Peter Perl, a member of the senior management at The Washington Post. Who exactly "is" Bill Clinton, and why was he, of all the brilliant and ambitious men in his generation, the first in his class to reach the White House? Drawing on hundreds of letters, documents, and interviews, David Maraniss explores the evolution of the personality of our forty-second president from his youth in Arkansas to his 1991 announcement that he would run for the nation's highest office. In this richly textured and balanced biography, Maraniss reveals a complex man full of great flaws and great talents. "First in His Class" is the definitive book on Bill Clinton. First Touchstone Edition [stated]. First printing [stated]. Bookseller Inventory # 72815

Bibliographic Details

Title: First in His Class: A Biography of Bill ...

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York

Publication Date: 1995

Binding: Trade paperback

Book Condition: Good

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

A portrait of President Clinton scrutinizes his character, draws on hundreds of documents and interviews, traces his rise through the Georgetown-Oxford-Yale years, and recognizes his ability to attract the best and the brightest of his generation. 50,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Review:

Lots of people have put forth theories on what makes Bill Clinton tick, but the most trustworthy source may be David Maraniss of the Washington Post. Maraniss won a Pulitzer covering Clinton's campaign, and his book on the man is nonpareil; you simply can't understand Clinton without reading Maraniss's anaylsis of his past. When Bill Clinton is good, he is very, very good, and when he's bad, he's exactly like he has been all his life. Fair-minded but no apologist, Maraniss is essentially an inspiring reporter who, virtually alone among Americans, has troubled to interview Clinton's Oxford classmates and therefore knows that Clinton was, according to them, not lying when he said he "never inhaled"; his classmates devoted hours to teaching Bill to inhale, but he just couldn't do it. Maraniss also casts light on what Clinton did imbibe intellectually at Oxford; precisely what he did to elude the draft, and its moral significance; how Arkansas politics shaped his political style; and what his character and marriage might actually be like. Yes, Maraniss gives us a comic scene in which fiancée Hillary comes through the front door of the campaign headquarters while a young female staffer is hustled out the back--but more importantly, Maraniss puts such events in perspective. As he once observed in the Post, "The question of whether a president who cannot control his sexual appetite should not be president is a tough one. It might mean that most of our presidents should not have been presidents."