No public figure in contemporary life has elicited more polarized reactions than Hillary Rodham Clinton. The first presidential spouse who pursued a major policymaking role, the beleaguered first lady has been a heroine and role model to her feminist allies—and a malevolent, power-mad shrew to her conservative foes.

Now David Brock, America's most controversial journalist, takes on the most controversial first lady in history, producing a boldly incisive yet surprisingly sensitive portrait. A political biography of the first order, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham is the story of one strong-willed woman's struggle to maintain her personal and political integrity in the face of powerfully seductive forces, including the appeal of Bill Clinton, a charismatic, talented, but deeply flawed man who may have been both the best and the worst thing that ever happened to her.