2009, THE CLINTON TAPES: WRESTLING HISTORY WITH THE PRESIDENT. By Taylor Branch. (ISBN: 1416543333 / 1-4165-4333-3 )

Book Description: Simon & Schuster, New York, New York, 2009. Stated First Edition September 2009, number line on copyright page reads 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. White Cloth Hard Cover Boards and Spine with Gold Text. This is a First Edition remainder book which is new and never used. Book has a black felt pen remainder mark on the bottom or top edge of the pages. 707 pages, 6.625" x 9.5" tall, 2" thick. New copy. Never read. Not price clipped. Beautiful copy of book and dust jacket. COLLECTOR'S COPY.

Book Condition: Brand New.

Dust Jacket Condition: Brand New. NON price-clipped DJ [$35.00 US]. Has some very slight flaws where price a sticker once was.

Please Note: With this books color being white, it did not scan very well.

About This Book: Oral biography on subject. Destined to be a contemporary classic, the book is inescapably a companion volume to President Bill Clinton's own memoir, "My Life" (2004).  Presents Bill Clinton "up close and personal" with impeccable timing. The publisher's concerns that the book will be sidelined by events unraveling at the moment (as well as flavor-of-the-month, ghostwritten memoirs by Presidential wannabes like Sarah Palin) have proven to be unfounded, and will be vindicated by posterity. The Clinton story is inexhaustible in the most instructive way. "Rests upon a secret project, initiated by Clinton, to preserve for future historians an unfiltered record of Presidential experience. During his eight years in office, between 1993 and 2001, Clinton answered questions and told stories in the White House, usually late at night. Taylor Branch recorded seventy-nine of these dialogues to compile a trove of raw information about a Presidency as it happened. Branch's first-hand narrative is confessional, unsparing, and personal. The dynamic relationship that emerges from these interviews is both affectionate and charged, with flashes of anger and humor" (Publisher's blurb). Some of the more explosive tidbits: "Branch reports on an angry blow-up between Clinton and Vice President Al Gore after Gore lost the 2000 election and blamed Clinton's character defects for voter disillusionment with Democrats. There is also a poignant reminder of Chelsea Clinton's suffering over her father's sex scandal. She was too embarrassed to be seen with him on campus at Stanford" (The Washington Post). Chelsea has blossomed into a poised and beautiful young woman, whom we will surely see and hear more in the future, whereas the vindictive Al Gore is still going around blaming everybody but himself for his 2000 defeat-by-default. A "must-have" title for Bill Clinton, Taylor Branch, and Americana collectors. This is an Advance Signed Copy, and it is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen on the title page by Taylor Branch. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page or bookplate, even though it comes from the publisher. This title is an instant classic. This is the only such Advance Signed Copy available online and has no flaws, a pristine beauty. A very scarce signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1988 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for "Parting The Waters", the first book in his Martin Luther King trilogy. Winner of the MacArthur Genius Grant in 1991. Recipient of the National Medal for the Humanities in 1999. One of the greatest living American journalist/historian/scholars.

Synopsis: A GROUNDBREAKING BOOK about the modern presidency, The Clinton Tapes invites readers into private dialogue with a gifted, tormented, resilient President of the United States. Here is what President Clinton thought and felt but could not say in public.

This book rests upon a secret project, initiated by Clinton, to preserve for future historians an unfiltered record of presidential experience. During his eight years in office, between 1993 and 2001, Clinton answered questions and told stories in the White House, usually late at night. His friend Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch recorded seventy-nine of these dialogues to compile a trove of raw information about a presidency as it happened. Clinton drew upon the diary transcripts for his memoir in 2004.

Branch recorded his own detailed recollections immediately after each session, covering not only the subjects discussed but also the look and feel of each evening with the president. The text engages Clinton from many angles. Readers hear candid stories, feel buffeting pressures, and weigh vivid descriptions of the White House settings.

Branch's firsthand narrative is confessional, unsparing, and personal. The author admits straying at times from his primary role -- to collect raw material for future historians -- because his discussions with Clinton were unpredictable and intense. What should an objective prompter say when the President of the United States seeks advice, argues facts, or lodges complaints against the press? The dynamic relationship that emerges from these interviews is both affectionate and charged, with flashes of anger and humor. President Clinton drives the history, but this story is also about friends.

The Clinton Tapes highlights major events of Clinton's two terms, including wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, the failure of health care reform, peace initiatives on three continents, the anti-deficit crusade, and titanic political struggles from Whitewater to American history's second presidential impeachment trial. Along the way, Clinton delivers colorful portraits of countless political figures and world leaders from Nelson Mandela to Pope John Paul II.

These unprecedented White House dialogues will become a staple of presidential scholarship. Branch's masterly account opens a new window on a controversial era and Bill Clinton's eventual place among our chief executives.

About The Author: Taylor Branch (born January 14, 1947, in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American author and historian best known for his award-winning trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and some of the history of the American civil rights movement. The third and final volume of the 2,912-page trilogy — collectively called America in the King Years — was released in January 2006. Branch lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his wife, Christina Macy, and their two children, Macy (born 1980) and Franklin (b. 1983).

Early life and education: Branch graduated from The Westminster Schools in Atlanta in 1964. From there, he went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a Morehead Scholarship. He graduated in 1968 and went on to earn an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1970.

He was a lecturer in politics and history at Goucher College from 1998 to 2000.

Career: Branch served as an assistant editor at The Washington Monthly from 1970 to 1973; he was Washington editor of Harper's from 1973 to 1976; and he was Washington columnist for Esquire Magazine from 1976 to 1977. He also has written for a wide variety of other publications, including The New York Times Magazine; Sport; The New Republic; and Texas Monthly.

In 1972, Branch worked for the Texas campaign of Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern. Some of Branch's coworkers in the effort were Bill Clinton, at the time his roommate and later to be president of the United States, Hillary Rodham, Bill's then-girlfriend and Yale Law School classmate and later his wife, first lady of the United States and U.S. Secretary of State, and Houston lawyer Julius Glickman.

In October 1976, Simon & Schuster published Blind Ambition, which purports to be, mainly, a Watergate-related memoir by John Dean, the former White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon. On several occasions, Taylor Branch has publicly stated that he was the ghostwriter for this book. John Dean has denied this, though in 1995 gave sworn-deposition testimony that Taylor Branch actually wrote large sections of the book without his (Mr. Dean's) participation, knowledge, or approval. John Dean claimed furthermore that these sections written by Taylor Branch were partially fictional. Taylor Branch has, in turn, denied John Dean's claims, and continues to assert, including on his website (cited below under "External links"), that he was, in fact, the ghostwriter for "Blind Ambition," and that all of the book's content originated with Dean.

Branch's book on former president Bill Clinton, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With The President, was written from many tape-recorded interviews and conversations between the two, most of which occurred in the White House during Clinton's two terms in office and which were not disclosed publicly until 2009 at the time of the book's publication.

Taylor Branch received a five-year MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (also known as a "genius grant") in 1991 and the National Humanities Medal in 1999.

In 2008, Taylor Branch received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to him by special guest Edwin C. Moses.

Controversial Statements: In his 1992 essay "Blacks and Jews: The Uncivil War", Branch said that the Jews have been "perpetrators of racial hate", citing an example where he claims that Black Hebrew Israelites were denied citizenship under the Israeli law of return because of alleged anti-Black sentiment among Israeli Jews. Branch was criticized by Seth Forman, who said the claims seem baseless, particularly in light of Israel's airlift of thousands of black Ethiopian Jews in the early 1990s. A group of American civil rights activist led by Bayard Rustin investigated and concluded that racism was not the cause of Black Hebrews' situation.

Books:

• Blowing the Whistle: Dissent in the Public Interest (with Charles Peters) (Praeger: 1972)
• Second Wind (with Bill Russell) (Random House: 1979)
• The Empire Blues (fiction) (Simon & Schuster: 1981)
• Labyrinth (with Eugene M. Propper): (Viking: 1982)
• Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (Simon & Schuster: 1988)

Pulitzer Prize for History, 1988

National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, 1988

English-Speaking Union Book Award, 1989

(Finalist): National Book Award, Non-Fiction, 1989

• Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 (Simon & Schuster: 1998)

American Bar Association, Silver Gavel Award, 1999

Imus Book Award, 1999

Sidney Hillman Book Award, 1999

• At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968 (Simon & Schuster: 2006)
• The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President (Simon & Schuster: 2009)

Source: Wikipedia