Read of the Town: Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Whenever a politician, especially one with a last name of Clinton, writes a book, there will be hordes of people clamoring to read whatever "secrets" might be found within. I'm sure that can be said for any politician that has had some scandal attached to their name since the beginning of time. We humans have some strange need to know, even if after we've read the novel and realize it's what we already knew. Let's be honest, many of us will be itching to get our hands on this book.

Let me answer some key questions that many of you might have or expect to be answered due to the title of this book. First of all, the "Hard Choices" she speaks of has NOTHING, I repeat, has NOTHING to do with her husbands Monica Lewinsky scandal. If you are looking for that you've picked up the wrong book. In fact, this book will ONLY be discussing her time as Secretary of State. That's it. Those hard choices will be based on the decisions she had to make while in that high ranking position. So, if you are remotely interested in what her life was like as Secretary of State, by all means, grab this book when it comes out on June 10th. Otherwise, don't be too disappointed after you've read all 656 pages and found very little mention of Monica Lewinsky. I wouldn't even be surprised if her husband wasn't mentioned in the book either!

I will say it is a bit disappointing that she doesn't mention Monica Lewinsky in this book only because the title seems much more in line with the story of her life in the last several decades! But if she is intending on running (and winning) in 2016 for President of the United States then rehashing that scandal would definitely NOT be in her favor.

Synopsis:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s inside account of the crises, choices, and challenges she faced during her four years as America’s 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future.

“All of us face hard choices in our lives,” Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the center of world events. “Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become.”

In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted.

Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm’s way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had visited 112 countries, traveled nearly one million miles, and gained a truly global perspective on many of the major trends reshaping the landscape of the twenty-first century, from economic inequality to climate change to revolutions in energy, communications, and health. Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of women, youth, and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day.

Secretary Clinton’s descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer readers a master class in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use “smart power” to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world—one in which America remains the indispensable nation.