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Crown
October 2010
On Sale: October 12, 2010
Featuring: Condelezza Rice
352 pages
ISBN: 0307587878
EAN: 9780307587879
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
Condoleezza Rice has excelled as a diplomat, political
scientist, and concert pianist. Her achievements run
the gamut from helping to oversee the collapse of communism
in Europe and the decline of the Soviet Union, to working to
protect the country in the aftermath of 9-11, to becoming
only the second woman - and the first black woman ever -- to
serve as Secretary of State.
But until she was
25 she never learned to swim.
Not because she
wouldn't have loved to, but because when she was a little
girl in Birmingham, Alabama, Commissioner of Public Safety
Bull Connor decided he'd rather shut down the city's pools
than give black citizens access.
Throughout the
1950's, Birmingham's black middle class largely succeeded in
insulating their children from the most corrosive effects of
racism, providing multiple support systems to ensure the
next generation would live better than the last. But
by 1963, when Rice was applying herself to her fourth
grader's lessons, the situation had grown intolerable.
Birmingham was an environment where blacks were expected to
keep their head down and do what they were told -- or face
violent consequences. That spring two bombs exploded
in Rice’s neighborhood amid a series of chilling Klu Klux
Klan attacks. Months later, four young girls lost
their lives in a particularly vicious
bombing.
So how was Rice able to achieve what
she ultimately did?
Her father, John, a
minister and educator, instilled a love of sports and
politics. Her mother, a teacher, developed
Condoleezza’s passion for piano and exposed her to the fine
arts. From both, Rice learned the value of faith in
the face of hardship and the importance of giving back to
the community. Her parents’ fierce unwillingness to
set limits propelled her to the venerable halls of Stanford
University, where she quickly rose through the ranks to
become the university’s second-in-command. An expert
in Soviet and Eastern European Affairs, she played a leading
role in U.S. policy as the Iron Curtain fell and the Soviet
Union disintegrated. Less than a decade later, at the
apex of the hotly contested 2000 presidential election, she
received the exciting news – just shortly before her
father’s death – that she would go on to the White House as
the first female National Security Advisor.
As comfortable describing lighthearted family
moments as she is recalling the poignancy of her mother’s
cancer battle and the heady challenge of going toe-to-toe
with Soviet leaders, Rice holds nothing back in this
remarkably candid telling. This is the story of Condoleezza
Rice that has never been told, not that of an
ultra-accomplished world leader, but of a little girl – and
a young woman -- trying to find her place in a sometimes
hostile world and of two exceptional parents, and an
extended family and community, that made all the
difference.
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Extraordinary, Ordinary People
I would love to read this book, I think she is an amazing woman.
(Jane Thompson 4:33pm October 14, 2010)
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