Russell L. Riley is Associate Professor and Co-Chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, where he has conducted nearly 300 oral history interviews with senior officials from every administration from Jimmy Carter onwards. He is the author and editor of several books on the American presidency, including The Presidency and the Politics of Racial Inequality: Nation-Keeping from 1831 to 1965 and The President's Words: Speeches and Speechwriting in the Modern White House.
This valuable text, and the good work of its editor, will benefit multiple categories of individuals, from general readers interested in the presidency through seasoned presidential scholars. - Congress and the Presidency [Inside the Clinton White House] contains plenty of insights... Every chapter crackles with anecdotes and serious discussions for political junkies, including Clinton partisans and Clinton detractors. - Kirkus The inevitable question that trails every action or reaction within a presidency is, What really happened? Here now in Russell Riley's Inside the Clinton White House is the answer-more accurately, the answer(s)-for Bill Clinton. They come in the stunningly candid oral history recollections of the people who were there with Clinton. The end result is not only a serious account of the working and thinking in a modern presidency. It reads like a page-turning adventure novel. - Jim Lehrer, former PBS TV anchor and novelist This oral history is indispensable in understanding President Clinton and his times. The interviews are wonderfully readable and splendidly evocative, page after page, and provide a window for us to understand how policy was transformed from the maelstrom of the campaign into the mechanisms of governance. - Richard M. Pious, Adolph and Effie Ochs Professor (emeritus), Barnard College and author of Why Presidents Fail Russell Riley has done a superb job of editing reminiscences of the tumultuous Bill Clinton presidency. Recollections of insiders about what it was like to be in the White House on learning that Vince Foster had committed suicide, that the president had engaged in sex with a young intern, and that Republicans were going to impeach him will keep readers enthralled page after page. - William E. Leuchtenburg, author, The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton Compelling...[Russell Riley] has made an essential contribution to our understanding of the Clintons and their times - providing potent ammunition for partisans, useful evidence for scholars, and juicy historical tidbits for all. - Washington Post