Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Don Van Natta Jr. (Author)
Key Phrases: defense team, southern development, personal calculations, White House, New York, First Lady (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gertz was one of the New York Times investigative reporters who started poking around the Whitewater case, but that doesn't mean readers should expect any four-alarm scandals from this unauthorized biography. Even with never-before-seen material from sources like White House counsel Vince Foster's notebooks, the worst Gertz and Van Natta (First Off the Tee) can say about Senator Clinton is that she may have padded her fees as a corporate lawyer and is lax about the required paperwork for hiring staff advisors. Their primary contention about Clinton-that she's a "meticulous architect of her persona" with "an almost scientific devotion to self-creation" and an unwillingness to admit to her mistakes-is hardly news, although a ballyhooed "secret pact," in which she and Bill planned from the earliest days of their marriage to maneuver him into the White House, may raise eyebrows. The profile in ambition is rich in anecdote, spending far more time on Clinton's Senate career than Carl Bernstein's bio. Far from a conservative hit job, their reportage tends to focus on public reaction to Clinton rather than to her politics, with the notable exception of her 2002 vote to support George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, including her vocal support of the theory that Saddam Hussein supported Al Qaeda, and her subsequent attempts to reinvent herself as an anti-war presidential candidate without refuting her previous position. The analysis of the early stages of her presidential campaign is somewhat hurried by necessity, but effectively supplements the balanced character study. Though they face stiff competition, Gertz and Van Natta's version of events is poised to gain traction.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Since New York Times reporters Gerth and Van Natta's book on Hillary Clinton appears only a few weeks after Carl Bernstein's A Woman in Charge, it is difficult to review the new entry without comparing it to what came before. When put side by side, this book is the far inferior work. One reason why can be found in the authors' notes. Although Clinton was not interviewed for either work, Bernstein clearly had access to friends and family, which makes his book far richer. For instance, he takes several chapters to chronicle Hillary's formative years and includes an array of insightful quotes and commentary that helps explain what shaped her. Gerth and Van Natta wrap up the early years more quickly, using virtually nothing beyond familiar incidents and material from Clinton's autobiography. In later chapters, Her Way relies heavily on information from Kenneth Starr and others from the Office of the Independent Counsel, all of whom clearly still have an ax to grind, slanting the material. One of the "scoops" of this book is the (flimsily sourced) news that the Clintons made a pact decades ago that both would have eight-year presidential terms, making Hillary seem even more calculating than usual. In the final pages, the authors do admit that their subject has strength of will, but their tone, and most of what comes before, makes even this seem like an undesirable characteristic. Cooper, Ilene

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (June 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316017426
• ISBN-13: 978-0316017428
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #499,396 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars On balance, it's balanced, June 14, 2007

By	L. Cary (Little Elm, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

If you're a Hillary devotees, you'll give this book 1 Star -- it doesn't fawn over her enough, and convincingly reveals some character flaws.

If you're a Hillary hater, you'll give this book 1 Star -- it doesn't protray her as evil.

In short--the writers don't appear to have an ax to grind. A seemingly unbiased biography. What a rare thing these days for a political figure!

If you're just trying to understand the person, you'll give it 3-4 Stars cause it's a valiant effort in that direction that leaves the reader with more questions than insight to her character. They leave the reader to draw their own conclusions, without bias, it seems to me.

Her husband (or, better, political-business partner), speaking of their relationship said, "The tapestry of our marriage is deep, colorful, and well-woven--and nobody will tear it asunder." Gerth and Van Natta weave a tapestry of a public persona here that is inegmatic, controversial, and well-publicized--and there's no decoder ring offered to figure it out.

The question the reader is left with is this: Just what is the core driving ethos of this person? Is it too deep to fathom, or merely as shallow as raw ambition for power? The people who think they know the answer to that question are the ones with 1 Star.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hillary, 1970 to today, July 16, 2007

By	armchairinterviews.com (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

I normally do not read biographies of living people. However, I have been interested in Hillary Rodham Clinton since she came onto the national stage as the wife of a presidential candidate and then as First Lady and Senator. So, it was with great anticipation that I began reading.

Unfortunately, I found the book to be less than I had hoped for. It reads like a college research paper or perhaps a textbook study. Nearly every paragraph is footnoted, some two or three times. This does lend credibility to an unauthorized biography that was written without actually interviewing the subject matter, but it also makes the writing feel choppy and disconnected. To me it seemed as if statements were cobbled together with little regard to the final flow. It is also quite clear that the authors are not fans of Hillary Clinton.

The book basically begins in 1970 when Hillary Rodham was a student at Yale Law School. Approximate three pages summarize her life prior to that time--with a few other paragraphs focusing on her undergrad years at Wellesley College. What I found most disappointing in the early sections of the book was the lack of any new information. A great deal of space was spent rehashing the Whitewater investigation that was carried on while the Clintons were in the White House. There is also a further rehashing of Bill Clinton's sexual infidelities. I felt both of those issues have been covered many times over and that nothing new was added in this book.

The final third of the book, as it moves into the areas of Hillary Clinton's Senate participation, and her preparation to run for President, are much more interesting than the first sections. While the biases of the authors are still evident, the material has a freshness that is lacking in the beginning.

This book could be a starting point for research into Hillary Clinton's life. The over 30 pages of endnotes could certainly lead to other source material. I would not recommend it for casual reading though.

Armchair Interviews says: Worth reading if you want to better understand Hillary Rodham Clinton.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars digging up invaluable information, July 2, 2007

By	Lisanne Domingues "bookalicious" (new jersey) - See all my reviews

I know lots of people who are on the fence about whether to support Hillary Clinton. This book helped me cut through the swirl of information about Clinton and gave me answers about how she operates as a politician, her weaknesses and strengths and what kind of a President she might be. It seems that Clinton has been in the public eye forever, but I still feel like I don't know her. This book really helped clue me in by taking me behind the scenes in a simple, direct way.