A Review by Sue Lynne
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Living History
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003
U.S. $28.00
ISBN: 0-7432-2224-5
LIVING HISTORY is a biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the 67th United States Secretary of State; the first lady of the U.S. from 1993 to 2001. The purpose of this book is to reveal the life experiences spent in the White House as the first lady period. It portrays a radical, passionate female through the roles of wife, mother, lawyer, advocate and international icon. As the author states that the book is a personal memoir to offer inside look at an extraordinary time in life, rather than a comprehensive history.
The structure and the content have been well organized. The book has 38 chapters; the author entitles each stage of her life, which made book particularly easy to read. What you are interested in her life experience, could easily find the section by simply looking at the titles. The content covers from early education, married Bill Clinton, moved into the White house, significant occasions in White House (both domestic and international), which include campaigning for New York Senator. The book introduced how life experiences made the person she is; most importantly, it presents an attitude towards success and failure happened in life. The extraordinary time spent in the White House is a journey of identifying inner self, building self-awareness, achieving goals and moving forward.
Family Background and Education
Introducing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s family background and early education. Rodham was born in a middle-class American family in Chicago and raised in Park Ridge, with two younger brothers. Rodham attended Wellesley College and was elected as senior class president before graduation in 1969. Rodham, then, made her first significant decision by attending Yale Law School, where she met her husband, Bill Clinton. Graduating with honors in 1973, Rodham attended Yale Child Study Center on her post-graduate year on children and medicine.
The Role of the First Lady
During the eight years life experiences in the White House, Clinton came to understand the role of the first lady is both symbolic and surrogate, although it is invisible. Clinton’s first job was a lawyer in Rose Law Firm in Arkansas after married. When Bill Clinton elected as a president in 1993, the Clintons moved into the White House. In conversations with Mary Catherine and Jean Houston, Clinton acknowledged that the power of the first lady is “derivative”(p265), the title of first lady is simply because the man you married became the president. However, Clinton grew up with choices and opportunities, and a strong belief that anything could be possible via hard working and determination. She sensed the difficulties to be a full-time surrogate for the president in the White House; she would like to face her own challenges and accept her own failures, rather than to be someone else’s surrogate. As it was described in the book “As much as I loved my husband and my country, adjusting to being a full-time surrogate was difficulty for me…I had better figure out how to make the best of it at home and on the world stage” (p265). Maybe that’s why some journalists and reviewers criticized her calculating way of presenting her marriage with Bill Clinton. But the real message delivered here, I think, was the determination of operating on her own success and failure in the future and being an independent individual as she always has been.
The Core Authenticity of Clinton
Smart people approach a challenge with a positive and realistic mindset, which is one of the core strengths that Clinton possesses. It can be seen from the fact that Clinton kept ending up at the top level of organizations that served (Homans, 2003), from a lawyer in Arkansas to the first lady of Arkansas to senator of New York City. Speaking of New York Senator, it is worth mentioning her decision making process for running it. Clinton went through her own dilemma. She wrote in the book “One minute it seemed like a great idea to run, the next minute I thought it was crazy”(P501). But she final decided after attending an event called “dare to compete” promoting women in sports. This event triggered a powerful inner self. The author also shared the ideological doubt in the book “Could I be afraid to do something I have urged countless other women to do? Why am I vacillating about taking on this race? Maybe I should dare to compete…” (P501). Clinton never intimidated by situations, although she has slightly doubt this time, mainly because she has always aligned with her president husband in the past, but this time she was on her own; which had never been the case before. But then Clinton realized it is supposed to be hard, if it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it--- the hard is what makes it great” (P501), she embraced the challenge with a positive and a realistic attitude and she won.
My Recommendation
Although there are some critics about the book, such as Michiko Kakutani, the powerful book critic of the New York Times criticized that Clinton's analysis of this role seems grandiose and self-regarding; there are also some printing grammar mistakes in the book, I still find it is a valuable book for Chinese readers. It is a great book to penetrate to U.S social culture in an advanced level in many aspects, particular in politics, family and social issues etc. It is also a great book for women in transitional period of life, it tells how a great American female embraced changes and faced challenges in her life and won great. Showalter also thinks the book is a valuable feminist document (Showalter, 2003).
Conclusion
Living History captures the essence of a remarkable woman of contemporary and the challenging process that came through. Although the purpose of the book is to tell the author’s life story, but as the memoir moves, the storytelling left behind. The real meanings delivered by the book are actually about identifying the real inner yourself in order to achieve goals; facing challenge and changes in life, as well as moving forward no matter how disastrous the misfortune seemed to be, it passes eventually. Indeed, it was the extraordinary life experience spent in the White House offered the author the chance of to be transformed into such an unexpected way.
Reference:
Shambaugh, R., (2010) Leadership secret of Hillary Clinton, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Showalter, E., (2003) The Throne Behind the Power, Guardian, June 14th (Accessed on Oct. 11th, 2012)
Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/jun/14/featuresreviews.guardianreview30
Homans, J (2003) Hill of Dreams: Living History comes up short on gossip and revenge, but why blame Hillary for being a politician, New York Books, June, 23rd (Accessed on Oct. 12th, 2012)
Available at http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/reviews/n_8806/
Living History
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003
U.S. $28.00
ISBN: 0-7432-2224-5
LIVING HISTORY is a biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the 67th United States Secretary of State; the first lady of the U.S. from 1993 to 2001. The purpose of this book is to reveal the life experiences spent in the White House as the first lady period. It portrays a radical, passionate female through the roles of wife, mother, lawyer, advocate and international icon. As the author states that the book is a personal memoir to offer inside look at an extraordinary time in life, rather than a comprehensive history.
The structure and the content have been well organized. The book has 38 chapters; the author entitles each stage of her life, which made book particularly easy to read. What you are interested in her life experience, could easily find the section by simply looking at the titles. The content covers from early education, married Bill Clinton, moved into the White house, significant occasions in White House (both domestic and international), which include campaigning for New York Senator. The book introduced how life experiences made the person she is; most importantly, it presents an attitude towards success and failure happened in life. The extraordinary time spent in the White House is a journey of identifying inner self, building self-awareness, achieving goals and moving forward.
Family Background and Education
Introducing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s family background and early education. Rodham was born in a middle-class American family in Chicago and raised in Park Ridge, with two younger brothers. Rodham attended Wellesley College and was elected as senior class president before graduation in 1969. Rodham, then, made her first significant decision by attending Yale Law School, where she met her husband, Bill Clinton. Graduating with honors in 1973, Rodham attended Yale Child Study Center on her post-graduate year on children and medicine.
The Role of the First Lady
During the eight years life experiences in the White House, Clinton came to understand the role of the first lady is both symbolic and surrogate, although it is invisible. Clinton’s first job was a lawyer in Rose Law Firm in Arkansas after married. When Bill Clinton elected as a president in 1993, the Clintons moved into the White House. In conversations with Mary Catherine and Jean Houston, Clinton acknowledged that the power of the first lady is “derivative”(p265), the title of first lady is simply because the man you married became the president. However, Clinton grew up with choices and opportunities, and a strong belief that anything could be possible via hard working and determination. She sensed the difficulties to be a full-time surrogate for the president in the White House; she would like to face her own challenges and accept her own failures, rather than to be someone else’s surrogate. As it was described in the book “As much as I loved my husband and my country, adjusting to being a full-time surrogate was difficulty for me…I had better figure out how to make the best of it at home and on the world stage” (p265). Maybe that’s why some journalists and reviewers criticized her calculating way of presenting her marriage with Bill Clinton. But the real message delivered here, I think, was the determination of operating on her own success and failure in the future and being an independent individual as she always has been.
The Core Authenticity of Clinton
Smart people approach a challenge with a positive and realistic mindset, which is one of the core strengths that Clinton possesses. It can be seen from the fact that Clinton kept ending up at the top level of organizations that served (Homans, 2003), from a lawyer in Arkansas to the first lady of Arkansas to senator of New York City. Speaking of New York Senator, it is worth mentioning her decision making process for running it. Clinton went through her own dilemma. She wrote in the book “One minute it seemed like a great idea to run, the next minute I thought it was crazy”(P501). But she final decided after attending an event called “dare to compete” promoting women in sports. This event triggered a powerful inner self. The author also shared the ideological doubt in the book “Could I be afraid to do something I have urged countless other women to do? Why am I vacillating about taking on this race? Maybe I should dare to compete…” (P501). Clinton never intimidated by situations, although she has slightly doubt this time, mainly because she has always aligned with her president husband in the past, but this time she was on her own; which had never been the case before. But then Clinton realized it is supposed to be hard, if it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it--- the hard is what makes it great” (P501), she embraced the challenge with a positive and a realistic attitude and she won.
My Recommendation
Although there are some critics about the book, such as Michiko Kakutani, the powerful book critic of the New York Times criticized that Clinton's analysis of this role seems grandiose and self-regarding; there are also some printing grammar mistakes in the book, I still find it is a valuable book for Chinese readers. It is a great book to penetrate to U.S social culture in an advanced level in many aspects, particular in politics, family and social issues etc. It is also a great book for women in transitional period of life, it tells how a great American female embraced changes and faced challenges in her life and won great. Showalter also thinks the book is a valuable feminist document (Showalter, 2003).
Conclusion
Living History captures the essence of a remarkable woman of contemporary and the challenging process that came through. Although the purpose of the book is to tell the author’s life story, but as the memoir moves, the storytelling left behind. The real meanings delivered by the book are actually about identifying the real inner yourself in order to achieve goals; facing challenge and changes in life, as well as moving forward no matter how disastrous the misfortune seemed to be, it passes eventually. Indeed, it was the extraordinary life experience spent in the White House offered the author the chance of to be transformed into such an unexpected way.
Reference:
Shambaugh, R., (2010) Leadership secret of Hillary Clinton, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Showalter, E., (2003) The Throne Behind the Power, Guardian, June 14th (Accessed on Oct. 11th, 2012)
Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/jun/14/featuresreviews.guardianreview30
Homans, J (2003) Hill of Dreams: Living History comes up short on gossip and revenge, but why blame Hillary for being a politician, New York Books, June, 23rd (Accessed on Oct. 12th, 2012)
Available at http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/reviews/n_8806/
有关键情节透露
- 作者: Hillary Rodham Clinton
- 出版: Simon & Schuster
- 定价: USD 28.00
- 装帧: Hardcover
- 页数: 562
- 时间: 2003-06