No Higher Honour

CONDOLEEZZA RICE was the 66th US secretary of state and the first black woman to hold that office. Prior to that, she was the first woman ever to serve as national security adviser, was provost of Stanford from 1993 to 1999, and served as the Soviet and East European Affairs adviser during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

"In her memoir, NO HIGHER HONOR, Rice looks back, offering unexpected candor about her tenure as national security adviser in Bush's first term and as secretary of state...the [book's] moments of self-doubt and regrets are a revelation...Rice offers sharp and penetrating portraits of foreign leaders...Her memoir is a reminder that foreign-policy choices facing the United States are complex and difficult, with no easy solutions...Rice has acquitted herself well in telling her side of the story; now she awaits the judgment of history."--The Washington Post "Rice provides a vivid account of the tumultuous years after Sept. 11, 2001...the latest in a string of memoirs emerging from Bush administration figures trying to define the history of their tenure [this book is] the most expansive record of those eight years by any of the leading participants."--The New York Times"The fascination of Rice's memoir, and it is fascinating, is less in the broad vision put forth for a more democratic world than in the gritty description of the way decisions were made in the White House and in the State Department as the Bush Administration sought to adapt to a universe radically changed by Al Qaeda's attacks on the United States in 2001. Rice's account of the immediate aftermath, as seen from inside the halls of the White House, is both vivid and disturbing."--Newsweek"Condoleezza Rice has a lot in common with Henry A. Kissinger...Now, like Kissinger, Rice has written a memoir drenched in details of the daily work of diplomacy...hers is a great story."--Bloomberg.com"Important...her stories [of the aftermath of 9-11] add texture to the well-known history of those days and weeks, sometimes movingly so."--Wall Street Journal"From the Hardcover edition."