New biography of Bill Clinton brings
rare historical perspective to the life and career of the 42nd president
David
Bennett, professor emeritus of history at the Maxwell School of Syracuse
University, has authored
Bill
Clinton: Building a Bridge to the New
Millennium (Routledge), a fascinating and meticulously researched new biography
of the 42
nd U.S. president.
The book
traces the path of Clinton’s life from his growing up in Arkansas through his
academic successes at Georgetown, as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and at Yale
Law School – where he met Hillary Rodham; his time as a law professor; and his
successful early political career as a multi-term governor of Arkansas. Bennett also examines the significance of the
“extraordinary political skills of this magnetic, gregarious, and articulate
figure, who would become one of the master politicians of his era.”
Using
behind-the-scenes accounts from scores of insiders, Bennett analyzes how Clinton
shaped the emerging “New Democrat” political vision -- “a new vital center for
American politics in the twenty-first century” -- that led to his victories in
the contentious presidential primaries of 1992 and the general election against
incumbent President George H.W. Bush.
When Clinton
took office in January 1993, his focus was on reviving a sagging economy, and
the book looks at his critical domestic agenda in detail. In two bruising but ultimately successful
budget showdowns in Congress, in 1993 and 1995, Bennett says that “Clinton
helped to shape and preserve policies that would overcome a crippling recession
and pave the way for the ‘boom of the nineties,’ an economic prosperity that
would benefit Americans in every sector of society.” This success, so infuriating to his critics
and political opponents, was not “a matter of chance,” Clinton would note, “but
a matter of choice.”
In addition
to facing a daunting array of domestic issues, Bennett writes, Clinton also
confronted “a post-Cold War world in upheaval.” Facing new challenges from rogue states and failed
states; carefully managing relations with Russia and its volatile leader; and dealing
with perilous economic crises in Asia and Mexico, as well as an emerging new
threat of international terrorism, Clinton also served as peacemaker in
Northern Ireland and the Middle East.
While there were setbacks and tragic failures along the way, Bennett
says that Clinton managed “a pragmatic and progressive foreign policy for a
complex new world environment.”
Despite Clinton’s
ambitious domestic and international policies, however, it was the scandal
stories that dominated media coverage during the president’s two terms. In a chapter titled “The Politics of Scandal
and the Impeachment Crisis,” Bennett looks closely at the allegations and
investigations launched against Clinton and his White House. While some of the early efforts to damage the
president were “comically preposterous,” according to Bennett, the Monica
Lewinsky sex scandal provided the issue that could be used to humiliate him –
and ultimately to impeach him. Here,
Bennett writes at length about the history of scandal in American politics and
how the Clinton-Lewinsky affair represented something new.
The book’s
final chapter focuses on the former president’s activities after leaving the
White House, including the achievements of the Clinton Foundation and the
Clinton Global Initiative, as well as Clinton’s return to the national
political spotlight with his work for the re-election of Barack Obama in
2012.
Strobe
Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution, says, “This compelling
biography of Bill Clinton is the first by a distinguished scholar of the
presidency – and likely to remain the best for a long time to come. Bennett brings historical perspective to the
achievements and trials of our forty-second chief executive while narrating a
remarkable career with lucidity and insight.”
Professor
David Bennett is an award-winning author and teacher. He has written extensively on twentieth
century American history, modern military history and political extremism in
America. His books include The Party of Fear: The American Far Right from
Nativism to the Militia Movement; The Party of Fear: From Nativist Movements to
the New Right in American History; Demagogues in the Depression: American
Radicals and the Union Party, 1932-36;
and From Teapot Dome to Watergate. 04/15/14