My Life

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 957, [1], xlii, [2] pages. Illustrated with 32 pages of photographs. Index. Slight DJ wear and soiling. Inscribed by the author on the title page to Jay McCarthy. This is the first issue of the First Edition of President Clinton's one-volume autobiography; the last sentence of the acknowledgments reads "None of them [the lengthy list of people who made his life possible] are responsible for the failure of my life, but for whatever good has come out of it they deserve much of the credit." William Jefferson Clinton (born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to his presidency, he served as governor of Arkansas (1979-1981 and 1983-1992) and as attorney general of Arkansas (1977-1979). Clinton was known as a New Democrat, and many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy. He is the husband of Hillary Clinton. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Ac. In the 1994 elections, the Republican Party won unified control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. In 1996, Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to a second full term. He passed welfare reform and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and financial deregulation measures. During the last three years of Clinton's presidency, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus-the first surplus since 1969. This copy is believe to have been inscribed to the Jay McCarthy who worked on the staffs of Senators Daniel Patrick Monyihan, Charles Schumer, Edward Kennedy, and Paul Kirk (who was appointed to Kennedy's seat after his death).

In My Life, Clinton covered his life chronologically, beginning with his early years in Hope, Arkansas, and his family's move to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he attended school and learned the tenor saxophone. It later had a peripheral role in his political public appearances. He had an early interest in politics, which he pursued in college. He eventually ran for and won the Governorship of Arkansas, and later, the Presidency of the United States. Along the way, Clinton offers anecdotes of ordinary people he had interacted with over the years.
Early in Clinton's life, he recalls listening to his family's stories of others and learning that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgments can make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes the only, response to pain. Following his defeat for second term as governor, Clinton remarks, "the system can only absorb so much change at once; no one can beat all the entrenched interests at the same time; and if people think you've stopped listening, you're sunk." In a political battle, he said that one should wait for an attack from his opponent, then counterpunch as strong and as fast as possible. Early gaffes in Clinton's political career were a result, he believed, of taking too long to respond to attacks. Clinton spent about two and a half years on the book. He gathered material for four months, wrote an outline, and spent two years and two months writing the book. The original draft for the book was written completely in long-hand. "[There were] 22 big, thick notebooks."