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U.S. Presidents & Presidency: Clinton

A topic guide covering the Presidents of the United States. This is an ongoing project. As such, additional individuals will be added over time.

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson Clinton served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 - 2001. Prior to the presidency, he served as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 - 1981 and from 1983 - 1992. Clinton became the second impeached president in 1998, though he was later acquitted. 

Internet Resources

Reference, Archives, & Primary Sources

Clinton's America and the Millennium

Bill Clinton's eight-year administration underlined the difference between America and other Western nations that had created cradle-to-grave social welfare states. Continued turbulence in the Middle East made America a devil-nation to the Arab world. This judgment confronted America in the starkest possible way in September 2001 with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Source: Kanopy

Perspectives

My Life

President Bill Clinton's My Life is the strikingly candid portrait of a global leader who decided early in life to devote his intellectual and political gifts, and his extraordinary capacity for hard work, to serving the public. It shows us the progress of a remarkable American, who, through his own enormous energies and efforts, made the unlikely journey from Hope, Arkansas, to the White House--a journey fueled by an impassioned interest in the political process which manifested itself at every stage of his life: in college, working as an intern for Senator William Fulbright; at Oxford, becoming part of the Vietnam War protest movement; at Yale Law School, campaigning on the grassroots level for Democratic candidates; back in Arkansas, running for Congress, attorney general, and governor. We see his career shaped by his resolute determination to improve the life of his fellow citizens, an unfaltering commitment to civil rights, and an exceptional understanding of the practicalities of political life. We come to understand the emotional pressures of his youth--born after his father's death; caught in the dysfunctional relationship between his feisty, nurturing mother and his abusive stepfather, whom he never ceased to love and whose name he took; drawn to the brilliant, compelling Hillary Rodham, whom he was determined to marry; passionately devoted, from her infancy, to their daughter, Chelsea, and to the entire experience of fatherhood; slowly and painfully beginning to comprehend how his early denial of pain led him at times into damaging patterns of behavior. President Clinton's book is also the fullest, most concretely detailed, most nuanced account of a presidency ever written--encompassing not only the high points and crises but the way the presidency actually works: the day-to-day bombardment of problems, personalities, conflicts, setbacks, achievements.

The Clinton Presidency

This important text is the first to examine the Clinton presidency from a communication perspective. Experts in communication and presidential studies analyze the rhetoric, images, issues, and communication strategies employed by the President, the First Lady, and the administration. From the feel-good town meetings of the campaign to the exuberant days of the inauguration, from the health care crisis to the Whitewater scandal and the Republican congressional landslide, this volume attempts to separate image from reality and spin from actuality in the media presidency of William Jefferson Clinton.

Inside the Clinton White House

The inner life of every White House is veiled in mystery. Only a select few partake in the sensitive discussions of the Oval Office or the casual banter about high policy and low politics conducted over the engine roar of Air Force One. The privilege of the president's confidence depends onthe confidentiality of such exchanges while the president's term endures.Inside the Clinton White House provides a front-row seat to that previously unknown history of the 42nd presidency. In the decade after Bill Clinton left the White House, scores of his political advisors, senior White House staff, and cabinet officials recorded oral history interviews with scholarsworking with the acclaimed Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. The content of these interviews is published for the first time in this volume.Inside the Clinton White House tracks Bill Clinton's emergence as a national political figure with the New Democrat movement, takes the reader inside the 1992 campaign, and then details life inside the Clinton White House as experienced by those who were there. Sections of the book are devoted todomestic policy (including reforms of the health care and welfare systems), foreign policy (including military interventions in Haiti and the Balkans), politics in the Clinton years (including impeachment), and the key personalities of the time (including chapters on Al Gore and Hillary RodhamClinton). These candid spoken accounts--history "with the bark off" in Lyndon Johnson's phrase--add color and nuance to our understanding of Bill Clinton and his administration, sometimes confirming and sometimes upending the conventional wisdom.

The Clinton Legacy

This collection of essays evaluates Bill Clinton's performance as president over two terms. Concerned with the interaction between his leadership and the changing nature of the political environment, these experts offer a context for understanding Clinton's ways of governing.

One Scandalous Story

One of the nation's most respected newsmen tells the riveting inside story of 13 days that revealed the true character of modern American journalism.

The Choice

"Based on a massive body of original reporting and documentation, and on hundreds of interviews with firsthand sources, The Choice is the behind-the-scenes story of President Bill Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole over the last two years. It is the personal and political story of how the nation's two top leaders prepared themselves to square off for the 1996 presidential election." "Never before has political reporting provided voters with so much authoritative, in-depth information on the candidates before a presidential election. The Choice sets the stage for the November 5, 1996, election with a study of the contenders in action - their decisions, their conversations, their private assessments, their disappointments, their anger and triumphs, their definitions of themselves and their evolving understanding of national purpose." "Included in this wide-ranging political history is exclusive new material on the Republican primary contest; the White House and congressional budget battles; the top secret Bosnia strategy sessions in the White House; the influence of Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., and House Speaker Newt Gingrich; the role of political money; the uses of public opinion polling and advertising; former General Colin Powell's decision not to run; and the strategies of both campaigns, including Dole's decision to leave the Senate and his consideration of possible running mates."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A Vast Conspiracy

"In A Vast Conspiracy, the bestselling author of The Run of His Life casts an insightful, unbiased eye over the Clinton sex scandals. Jeffrey Toobin tells the unlikely story of the events that began over doughnuts in a Little Rock hotel and ended on the floor of the United States Senate with only the second vote on presidential removal in American history. This is an entirely fresh look at the scandal that very nearly brought down a president."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

HRC

The mesmerizing story of Hillary Clinton's political rebirth, based on eyewitness accounts from deep inside her inner circle Hillary Clinton's surprising defeat in the 2008 Democratic primary brought her to the nadir of her political career, vanquished by a much younger opponent whose message of change and cutting-edge tech team ran circles around her stodgy campaign. And yet, six years later, she has reemerged as an even more powerful and influential figure, a formidable stateswoman and the presumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, marking one of the great political comebacks in history.    The story of Hillary's phoenixlike rise is at the heart of HRC, a riveting political biography that journeys into the heart of "Hillaryland" to discover a brilliant strategist at work. Masterfully unfolded by Politico's Jonathan Allen and The Hill's Amie Parnes from more than two hundred top-access interviews with Hillary's intimates, colleagues, supporters, and enemies, HRC portrays a seasoned operator who negotiates political and diplomatic worlds with equal savvy. Loathed by the Obama team in the wake of the primary, Hillary worked to become the president's greatest ally, their fates intertwined in the work of reestablishing America on the world stage. HRC puts readers in the room with Hillary during the most intense and pivotal moments of this era, as she mulls the president-elect's offer to join the administration, pulls the strings to build a coalition for his war against Libya, and scrambles to deal with the fallout from the terrible events in Benghazi--all while keeping one eye focused on 2016.   HRC offers a rare look inside the merciless Clinton political machine, as Bill Clinton handled the messy business of avenging Hillary's primary loss while she tried to remain above the partisan fray. Exploring her friendships and alliances with Robert Gates, David Petraeus, Leon Panetta, Joe Biden, and the president himself, Allen and Parnes show how Hillary fundamentally transformed the State Department through the force of her celebrity and her unparalleled knowledge of how power works in Washington. Filled with deep reporting and immersive storytelling, this remarkable portrait of the most important female politician in American history is an essential inside look at the woman who may be our next president.

The Clinton Affair

The comprehensive three-night documentary series "THE CLINTON AFFAIR" from Academy Award(r) and Emmy(r)-winning producer Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions and Emmy(r)-winning director Blair Foster.

Watch on Kanopy.