Rating: 
Summary: A Good Memoir
Review: Hilary Clinton is as polarizing as Richard Nixon yet the two have many similarities. Both were controversial political figures while in office, Nixon for Watergate and Clinton for the Health Care difficulty as well as her family life. Both wrote insightful works after they left office; Nixon wrote several, Clinton also wrote a decent children's book. Regardless of her political career or future political aspirations, Living History is a good memoir. Clinton chronicles her days in Chicago, her undergraduate career at Wellesley, and her days at Yale Law School with rather insightful detail that may help the average uninformed reader to better understand the events and places that shaped her life. She also chronicles the era when her husband was Attorney General of Arkansas then Governor then President of the United States without adding a plethora of political detail. All the while, she responds to the pressing questions of the critics as well as the readers making reference to or outright explaining controversies that occurred during those periods of time. All in all, Clinton does a good job of blending together the high and low points without seeming bitter or overly critical or taking swipes at any critics, which counts for quite a lot considering her polarizing nature.
Rating: 
Summary: Living or is it really dead history
Review: What a throughly disappointing book, I expected a book about the revolutionary principles that people like me, stalin, and such recent hall of famers as tom haden, and kucinich have embodied...but noooooo!!Instead we get a book about living history. Well Hilary I think you should retrace your liberal roots and return to the party that really loves you. Kudos, and remember to my help my dear friend howard dean, for today the senate tommorrow the world!!!
Rating:
Summary: Love her or hate her
Review: Love her or hate her
Reviewer: starrdavid from Edison, nj USA
Love Hillary or hate her, it's inconsequential. The CD Audio-book is captivating, elucidating and honest. She, like Madeline Albright, takes a view of the events surrounding them and those in which they are involved and offer their personal take on the situations. While Mrs. Clinton's "Living History" is a superb memoir, Secretary of State Madeline Albright's "Madam Secretary" is the more captivating and informative and self-revealing of the two powerful, brilliant women. Both are excellent reads.
Rating: 
Summary: Politicians Say Things
Review: When one goes to Amazon.com and looks at book reviews, there are generally about a half dozen. Sometimes a book will work its way up to fifty or a hundred or so. There are over 600 reviews of this book on Amazon. Every single review disagrees with every single other review. And every single review paints an accurate picture of the book. Because this book is about and by Hillary Clinton. The reviews say the book is honest, dishonest, illuminating, evasive, a white-washing and an airing of laundry. And it's all true. Why shouldn't it be? Hillary is not duty-bound to deconstruct each event that happened to her while she was in the white house. She is telling the reader her side of events. In addition, while Hillary is more-or-less expected to give a brutal soul searching in such a book, she by her own admition is not the most effusive or emotional person on the planet. It does not seem consistent with her character for her to engage in self-flagellation for acts that for whatever reason caught the public's attention. My favorite Amazon review was from someone who said that this was list of insignificant meetings with insignificant people. I wonder who that reviewer hangs out with. Other reviews say that one should read this if they want to find out 'what really happened'. Well, I'm not sure that's fair either. It is certainly clear that the 8 years of investigations that only revealed one night of oral sex was caused by partisan politics at its worst. But one doesn't need to read this to find that out. On the other hand, Hillary does have kind things to say about Dick Gephardt who until recently was one of the poster children for partisan bickering and game playing.
So the reader must take a step back and read this book as I did. Hillary was one of our most effective first ladies. She rather unexpectedly ended up at the white house and had some adventures and some misadventures. She made some mistakes. She had some thrilling experiences. And she had the crap kicked out of her. She had the crap kicked out of her because she was actually qualified to do what she was trying to do. Very few people understood her background. They thought she was just another person who happened to be married to the president. Some critics of this book say it is told simplistically. Many of the same say that she shouldn't have written it because she should be busy being a senator. Many of those say she shouldn't a senator at all. Circular logic. Partisan bickering. Pick your favorite senator or president and you will likely find they've written a book. In fact, in the last elections, our current president hadn't written any books. So he had to quickly publish something so people wouldn't think he wasn't smart enough for the white house. So, it's pretty much expected that if you are a politician that you have written a book. And god help us if we someday think our politicians have nothing to say.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad...for what it is
Review: If you're looking for insights into her marriage, what she thinks of her husband's serial cheating, and what her real politic views are...forget it, that's not what this is. This is a nice white-wash book that is trying to soften her up to run in 2008 and to cash in on a lucritive book deal. It is well done, but there's nothing really here. I doubt she wrote it, it is an attempt to make her look saint-like. Like most books of this ilk, if you like her, you'll like the book. If you don't like her, you'll hate the book. Very little substance here, but for her fans, a must-read.
Rating: 
Summary: Intersting history of women & children's issues
Review: There is very good history here of issues that faced women & children globally during the 1990s and how President & Ms. Clinton's passion for those issues shaped the presidency. Well worth it for that alone. The writing is good--engaging and fluid. Held my attention throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the wait
Review: A true American hero and icon has written a good book about her childhood up through her time in the White House as perhaps our best first lady behind Eleanor Roosevelt. This was a very good read, even though I did feel that there were a few sections of self pitying. But, to be honest, I find this perfectly acceptable considering the despicable attacks that the first family had to endure for eight years. She did leave a few details a bit thin that I would have liked to have, but I realize that 528 pages is already an achievement - a book can only be so long and making decisions about what to put in and leave out cannot be easy. I sincerely hope that Hillary makes a run in '08 if W. wins in '04. I'd also like to see another book about her experiences in the Senate - I'd buy it considering the quality of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Disgusted
Review: I like the reader that mentioned not to weigh down the garbage, just throw it in the fire. I agree, This book is so full of look at me ''poor Hillary the victim''. Boring...boring...boring!!!
It reeks of how much she wants the world to see her as a forgiving victim. If anyone is the victim, it would the people that bought this trash!!!!! And the American people that had to endure 8 years of the Clintons!!!!
Rating:
Summary: A true role model for American girls
Review: It's a sad day in this country when so many people are threatened by an intelligent, opinionated woman. The continuous attacks on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) are so pointless and shallow that they can either make one laugh or just shake their head in disgust. What makes this book such a "disappointment" is that Senator Clinton didn't attack Monica Lewinsky with gusto (she didn't attack her at all). That's what the media and many people wanted: Juicy tidbits to trump up in the media. She didn't sink to her adversaries' level of muckraking and that's what people don't get. To frothing Clinton bashers everywhere: Take a moment and read her life's history. The woman was raised a Republican (she even campaigned for Goldwater, for God's sake) and there's a nice photo in her book of her standing right next to future President Gerald Ford, among other key Republicans of the late-60's and early-70's. She was also a proud president of Wellesley College's Young Republicans Club (until she realized her beliefs no longer reflected those of the Republican Party and resigned). Bottom line: All those "scandals" of the 1990's were Republican manufactured and financed. Senator Clinton's life is a lot less dark than those of conservative pundits. It was an absolute pleasure to read this book and I'm proud to have it in my library.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not Life-altering
Review: Living History was different than many anticipated. It was mostly a meandering story of her life. Many were hoping to get the gossip on all the scandals, but I think that was naïve hope. The story is simply of her life, interests, and landmarks. There are no scandalous revelations. She doesn't necessarily make excuses, but she doesn't really address the scandals either. The book reads easily and is relatively interesting, but a great disappointment for anyone looking for a juicy read. Like most autobiographies, there is not much of a moral or deeper message, but an opportunity for an icon to tell a few stories and a chance for the public to get to know them better. One thing the book does very successfully is make the legend into a person. The book serves to humanize the controversial first lady and show that she is like many other mothers and wives; she just had to share her life with the world. Unfortunately, it seems that in retrospect she is wearing somewhat rose-colored glasses, because every aspect of her childhood, courtship, marriage, and family was "perfect". It's hard (and not all that interesting) to read about the life of a woman who apparently has no regrets whatsoever because everything went right for her. It's just a little unbelievable. The book is an interesting read, but it is not particularly informative about politics. This book will not make any converts, nor will it change anyone's opinions of the Former First Lady.
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