She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her law school class in 1952, no firm would even interview her. But Sandra Day O’Connor’s story is that of a woman who repeatedly shattered glass ceilings --- doing so with a blend of grace, wisdom, humor, understatement and cowgirl toughness. This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family, who believed in serving her country, and who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for all women.

What drove a painfully shy outcast in elite Washington society --- a man so self-conscious he refused to make eye contact during meetings --- to pursue power and public office? How did a president so attuned to the American political id that he won reelection in a historic landslide lack the self-awareness to recognize the gaping character flaws that would drive him from office and forever taint his legacy? In BEING NIXON, Evan Thomas peels away the layers of the complex, confounding figure who became America’s 37th president.

Upon assuming the presidency in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower set about to make good on his campaign promise to end the Korean War. He would take a colossal risk by bluffing that he might use nuclear weapons against the Communist Chinese, while at the same time restraining his generals and advisors who favored the strikes. Ike's gamble was of such magnitude that there could be but two outcomes: thousands of lives saved, or millions of lives lost.

These are the leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Robert Lovett,  John McCloy,  and Charles Bohlen.