cover image The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy

The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy

Glenn Kessler, , . St. Martin?s, $24.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-312-36380-2

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.)