"The 1990s was a decade of extreme change. Shifts in culture, politics, and technology radically altered the way Americans did business, expressed themselves, and thought about their role in the world. At the center of it all was Bill Clinton, the charismatic and flawed baby boomer president, along with his polarizing but increasingly popular wife, Hillary. Although it was in many ways a Democratic Gilded Age, the 1990s was also a time of great anxiety. The Cold War was over. America was stable and prosperous. Yet Americans felt more unmoored and isolated. This was the era of glitz and grunge, when we relished living in the Republic of Everything even as we feared it might degenerate into the Republic of Nothing. Bill Clinton dominated this era, but his complex legacy has yet to be clearly defined. Historian Gil Troy examines Clinton's presidency alongside the decade's cultural changes. Taking the '90s year by year, Troy shows how the culture of the day shaped the Clintons even as the Clintons shaped it, offering answers to two enduring questions about Bill Clinton's legacy: How did such a talented politician leave Americans thinking he accomplished so little when he actually accomplished so much? And to what extent was Clinton responsible for the catastrophes of the following decade, specifically 9/11 and the collapse of the housing market? Even more relevant as we head toward the 2016 election, The Age of Clinton will appeal to readers on both sides of the aisle as it chronicles the wild, transformative decade and the president at its center"--

The emergence of the presidential couple is one of the most important and contentious developments in America's postwar political history. After the exceptional Roosevelts, the change began innocently enough, with Mamie becoming the first First Lady to remain on the campaign trail without her husband - receiving nothing but praise as a result. By the 1960s, with Lady Bird lobbying for legislation on TV, the first signs of protest appeared. In the 1970s, when Jerry and.

It began with Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. It accelerated with Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Lady Bird and Lyndon Johnson became partners in office and Nancy and Ronnie seemed joined at the hip. Without question, the presidential couple has arrived as a force in politics. Yet surprisingly, the electorate is not happy about it. The emergence of the presidential couple is one of the most important and contentious developments in America’s postwar political history. Its citizens’ reaction to the First Couple reflects the country’s changing morality, its uncertain attitude toward feminism, and the increasing power of the media. Gil Troy traces these shifts through ten presidential marriages, from the homesick tensions between Harry and Bess Truman to the very public scandals endured by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Along the way, readers learn of Mamie Eisenhower's perseverance on her husband’s campaign trail, Gerald Ford’s embarrassment over Betty’s outspoken honesty, and the amazing political success of Nancy and Ronald Reagan’s partnership in office. With a new chapter devoted to Hillary and Bill Clinton’s tainted partnership in office and to our present First Lady’s senatorial ambitions, this edition of Gil Troy’s Mr. and Mrs. President offers fresh insights into America’s paradoxical expectations for its presidential wives and husbands. “Troy argues that the rise of the First Couple is not simply a function of the women’s movement, but reflects a mixture of factors, including the weakening of parties, the rise of personality politics, the increasing power of the Presidency and the Federal Government and perhaps, most important of all, the ‘rise of the mass media and the new political culture it spawned.’”—New York Times Book Review.