Pelosi covers the life and career of the Speaker, set against the tumultuous series of challenges and division America has endured. I always appreciate a book that offers perspective and insight into events I have lived through, which Ball accomplishes.
I love a good biography, especially of remarkable women.
But perhaps what I appreciated most from Ball's book is an understanding of how power works in Washington.
Sometimes--rarely, anymore--there is compromise. Other times a party digs in its heels and won't budge. How does anything get done, especially in the hostile political climate of the last several decades?
Pelosi is a study in the use of power. How one gains it and loses or keeps it. Pelosi has endured while others have failed, given up, faded away. Pelosi is pragmatic, determined, organized, and workaholic, with a hefty dose of Mom-sense and faith.
Pelosi was a volunteer for Democrats in San Francisco and a mother and wife. How she became a force who could stand up to Washington's most powerful men is a riveting story. Pelosi learned from her failures, only becoming stronger.
Ball's respect for Pelosi is evident, but she has no political slant. She isn't afraid to show the weaknesses of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Trump, well, he gets the treatment he deserves.
"If this book has a thesis, it is that you needn't agree with Nancy Pelosi's politics to repsect her accomplishments and appreciate her historic career," Ball writes in the "Afterward". "I didn't expect to find her particularly compelling," she admits. In a compelling narrative, Ball's book achieves making Pelosi an iconic heroine.
I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Pelosi
Molly Ball
Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date May 5, 2020
ISBN: 9781250754974 $26.99 digital audio
ISBN: 9781250252852 $14.99 ebook
ISBN: 9781250252869 $27.99 hardcover
from the publisher
An intimate, fresh perspective on the most powerful woman in American political history, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, by award-winning political journalist Molly Ball.
She’s the iconic leader who puts Donald Trump in his place, the woman with the toughness to take on a lawless president and defend American democracy. Ever since the Democrats took back the House in the 2018 midterm elections, Nancy Pelosi has led the opposition with strategic mastery and inimitable elan. It’s a remarkable comeback for the veteran politician who for years was demonized by the right and taken for granted by many in her own party—even though, as speaker under President Barack Obama, she deserves much of the credit for epochal liberal accomplishments from universal access to health care to saving the US economy from collapse, from reforming Wall Street to allowing gay people to serve openly in the military. How did an Italian grandmother in four-inch heels become the greatest legislator since LBJ?
Ball’s nuanced, page-turning portrait takes readers inside the life and times of this historic and underappreciated figure. Based on exclusive interviews with the Speaker and deep background reporting, Ball shows Pelosi through a thoroughly modern lens to explain how this extraordinary woman has met her moment.about the author
Molly Ball is TIME Magazine's national political correspondent and appears regularly as an analyst on NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation, PBS’s Washington Week, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR. She formerly covered U.S. politics for The Atlantic and Politico. She is the winner of the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize and the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, among others, and lives in Washington, D.C.
