Citizen : my life after the White House / Bill Clinton.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A powerful, candid, and richly detailed memoir from an American icon, revealing what life looks like after the presidency: triumphs, tribulations, and all.

On January 20, 2001, after nearly thirty years in politics--eight of them as president of the United States--Bill Clinton was suddenly a private citizen. Only fifty-four years old, full of energy and ideas, he wanted to make meaningful use of his skills, his relationships with world leaders, and all he'd learned in a lifetime of politics, but how? Just days after leaving the White House, the call came to aid victims of a devastating earthquake in India, and Clinton hit the ground running. Over the next two decades, he would create an enduring legacy of public service and advocacy work, from Indonesia to Louisiana, Northern Ireland to South Africa, and in the process reimagine philanthropy and redefine the impact a former president could have on the world.

Citizen is Clinton's front-row, first-person chronicle of his postpresidential years and the most significant events of the twenty-first century, including 9/11 and the runup to the Iraq War, the Haiti earthquake, the Great Recession, the January 6 insurrection, and the enduring culture wars of our times. With clarity and compassion, he also weighs in on the unprecedented challenges brought on by a global pandemic, ongoing income inequality, a steadily warming planet, and authoritarian forces dedicated to weakening democracy. Yet Citizen is more than a political memoir. These pages capture Clinton in a rare and unforgettable light: not only as a celebrated former president and a foundation leader, but as a father, grandfather, and husband. He recounts his support for Hillary Clinton during her time as senator, secretary of state, and presidential candidate, and shares the frustration and pain of the 2016 election.

In this landmark publication, the highly anticipated follow-up to the best-selling My Life, Clinton pens an illuminating account of American democracy on a global stage, offering a frank reflection on the past and, with it, a fearless embrace of our future. Citizen is a self-portrait of equal parts eloquence, insight, and candor, a testament to one man's unwavering commitment to family and nation.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (3)
• Part I What Does a Former President Do?
• 1 The Man with No Face (11)
• 2 The Egyptian American at the Wall (28)
• 3 Work That Follows You Out of Office (41)
• 4 President Bush 41 and the Children's Drawings (69)
• 5 New Orleans and the Boats of Bayou La Batre (84)
• 6 Haiti and the People Who Keep Going (96)
• 7 Hurricanes Hit Home, and Bush 41's Last Rodeo (121)
• 8 Family Life Goes On (130)
• Part II Fighting Disease and Poverty Around the World and at Home
• 9 The Clinton Foundation and the Creation of CHAI (143)
• 10 The Activists, the Champions, and Bush 43's Fair Deal (154)
• 11 CGI: Reinventing Philanthropy, One Commitment at a Time (172)
• 12 The Widow Farmer and the Spice Traders (198)
• 13 Supporting Health and Opportunity at Home (208)
• 14 Women and Children First (224)
• 15 Skyscrapers and Trees to the Rescue (230)
• Part III Politics, Rewriting History, and Reviving the Foundation in a Still Uncertain Future
• 16 An Old Story in New Clothes (249)
• 17 The Senators Face Off (260)
• 18 Our First Black President and the Resurgence of the Hard Right (286)
• 19 Hillary Steps Down and In (302)
• 20 Comey and Putin Get into the Act (327)
• 21 The Hazards of Rewriting History (346)
• 22 2017-2020: Back to the Foundation (364)
• 23 The Virus That Affected Us All, and the "Virus We Resisted (375)
• Epilogue (409)
• Acknowledgments (415)
• Index (421)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this energetic if out of touch memoir, Clinton (My Life) paints his post-presidency as a whirlwind of globe-trotting, do-gooding, and private statesmanship. He recounts delivering humanitarian relief to disaster zones, undertaking informal diplomatic missions, and promoting innumerable social and environmental projects through the Clinton Foundation. Clinton still brims with empathy and exuberance (a William Jefferson Clinton day in Harlem "ended with all of us joining a jazz group in singing 'Stand By Me' "), funny stories (Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi proposed a marriage between his son and Clinton's daughter Chelsea, who nixed the union), wary defensiveness (he insists he never visited sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's island), and dazzling, somewhat iffy statistics ("More than 37 million people became actively engaged in efforts to promote climate change solutions," he reports of a Clinton Global Initiatives program). But he's tight-lipped about Democratic Party power plays--commenting neither on the party's sudden promotion of Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primary nor its hasty ouster of Biden in 2024--and his empathy evaporates when it comes to Donald Trump's supporters, whom he characterizes as "mostly white working-class voters" mired in "rage-based tribalism." Such musings feel ill-timed in the wake of the recent election, when Trump increased his share of voters of color. As a self-portrait, it amounts to an inadvertent illustration of how modern liberalism's ardency and efficacy can be undermined by its elitism and myopia. (Nov.)

Kirkus Book Review

Beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Bill Clinton has covered quite a few bases since leaving the presidency at age 54 in 2001. He recounts them in his latest memoir in ways that can be charming and sentimental (especially involving his daughter, Chelsea, and his fond relations with fellow ex-presidents), occasionally preachy (about the deficiencies of the national press or the devolution of American politics), and sometimes wonky (distilling data and financials of his philanthropic efforts). Ever loquacious, he chronicles his global missions to extend humanitarian relief and American goodwill, offering tutorials on the history and plight of other countries. He devotes a chapter to Haiti, a place "full of promise and tragedy," revisiting the devastating 2010 earthquake that prompted him to leverage his clout and connections on behalf of a people he has revered ever since his first visit, on his 1975 honeymoon with Hillary Clinton. As for any insights into their relationship, most personal revelations are kept in soft focus; the sharper backstories involve his postpresidential diplomacy and the sorry state of domestic politics. The former president does run through his roles in his wife's campaigns, and he expands on what he thinks kept "as gifted a leader as I've ever met" from the Oval Office. His short answer: "The political media, Jim Comey, and Vladimir Putin deserve most of the credit" for Donald Trump's 2016 victory. If there is a common thread in the disparate stories of this appealing memoir, it is that Clinton, for all his pragmatism as 42nd president, came out of the rough-and-tumble of Washington as the idealist who was first drawn to public service. A bighearted look back by a former president who has not lost his fervor. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.