From Publishers Weekly
At the end of President George W. Bush's first term, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was prepared to leave politics and return to an academic post at Stanford University before she was drafted by Bush to be secretary of state. Two years later, polls showed American voters regarded her as the most powerful woman in the country. In this gripping and intelligent account, Washington Post correspondent Kessler chronicles those two years, drawing on his firsthand experiences traveling with Rice as well as an impressive array of documents and interviews. Kessler organizes the book by region, vividly dramatizing Rice's travels and negotiations overseas—the chapter including her visits to Khartoum and Darfur is a standout—while providing thoughtful analysis and historical background to put these vignettes in context. Kessler praises Rice for a number of successes, including her role in weakening a secret CIA prison system in Europe, but he also criticizes her failure to provide a coherent foreign policy vision and her weakness at implementation and follow-up. This balanced, detailed text offers invaluable insight into Rice's rise to power, though its exclusive focus on foreign policy may limit its appeal. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist
With her long relationship with the Bush family (having served in the previous Bush administration) and ideological sympathy with the current President Bush, Rice has gained a position as trusted confidante. Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Kessler, who has traveled extensively with Secretary of State Rice, explores her career, personality, and relationship with Bush and other members of his administration. Drawing on interviews with Rice, he presents a portrait of a steely and forceful woman, capable of great charm, with the savvy to stand up to powerful political figures at home and abroad. Although Kessler examines her background for clues to her outlook on race, the book is predominantly focused on Rice's triumphs and foibles in foreign relations. He examines the policies she supported as national security advisor that later came back to haunt her as secretary of state. He offers details of Rice's involvement in tense negotiations with North Korea and Iran regarding nuclear weapons, efforts to encourage greater democracy—particularly for women—in the Middle East, and negotiations of a truce between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. She had agreed to take the position on the condition that the Bush administration would work toward creating a Palestinian state, a process that she undermined while she served as national security advisor and one that would continue to elude her. Finally, he explores her management style, lack of a coherent foreign policy vision, and desperate efforts to save Bush's foreign policy legacy and her own. Bush, Vanessa
