First in his class

Drawing on letters, documents, and interviews with several hundred people whose paths intersected with Clinton's at every level - family, friends, girlfriends, classmates, teachers, campaign workers, staff, and associates - Maraniss explores the evolution of the personality whose greatest strengths are also his greatest weaknesses: his talent for politics and careful networking, his perseverance and optimism, his ever eagerness to please, his tendency to shade the truth, and his insatiable appetite for life and ideas. It is a definitive study of Clinton's rise from obscure, provincial…