President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speak together sitting at a picnic table April 9, 2009, on the South Lawn of the White House. PHOTO © PETE SOUZA, COURTESY OF THE WHITE HOUSE
the final race. Clinton is in the position that she may hobble the other runners simply by not declaring her hand until it is too late. Her book may portray her decision as being on a finer edge than it is behind the scenes, but whatever that debate, one thing is clear: she keenly desires recognition for her personal accomplishments and will seek to play the role of kingmaker even if she doesn’t ultimately seek the job of king. The question all such fervent public servants must answer is: how far she is willing to potentially endanger her cause to further her legacy. 2015 is ripe with potential for both disaster and discovery and with not only another Clinton but another Bush possibly entering the presidential fray, there is more ‘Back to the Future’ than one might expect. Perhaps this time we will
master, if not time travel, at least political progress. Keep your eyes open for Marty McFly. Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton is published in New York by Simon & Shuster. Hardback, 656 pages. $35.00. ISBN 1476751447 Dr. Alison Holmes is Asst. Professor of International Studies and Politics at Humboldt State University, CA. She lived in the UK for over 20 years and worked at the BBC, ran BritishAmerican Business in London and was speechwriter to the US Ambassador. A PhD in International Relations from the LSE, she has been an Associate Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford, a Churchill Memorial Trust History Fellow and the Transatlantic Studies Fellow at Yale.
Ready for Hillary?
For a more nuanced, alternative, transatlantic view of the woman who may become the first female US President, Robin Renwick (Lord Renwick of Clifton, a former British Ambassador to the United States) has written a portrait of the former First Lady. Relatively short at 256 pages it manages to combine a compact political biography (is there any other kind with Hillary?) with conjecture as to whether she will run in 2016 and what sort of President she might be. The question mark in the title is not so much whether you, the American voter, are Ready for Hillary, but whether the USA itself is. Ready for Hillary? is published in London by Biteback Publishing. Hardback, 256 pages. £17.99 ISBN 1476751447
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