.jpg) 2014 hardback cover | |
| Author | Hillary Rodham Clinton |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | June 10, 2014 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 656 |
| ISBN | 978-1-4767-5144-3 |
Hard Choices is amemoir of formerUnited States Secretary of StateHillary Rodham Clinton, published bySimon & Schuster in 2014, giving her account ofher tenure in that position from 2009 to 2013. It also discusses some personal aspects of her life and career, including her feelings towards PresidentBarack Obama followingher 2008 presidential campaign loss to him. It is generally supportive of decisions made by theObama administration.
The book was promoted partly in light of the possibility of a Clinton bid in the2016 presidential election (in which, two years after the release of the book, she would go on to win theDemocratic nomination and then lose toDonald Trump in thegeneral election). Excerpts from the book were released in advance of its publication. Clinton staged an extensive promotional tour for the book, which had the air of a political campaign with groups both for and against her appearing at book-signing events.Hard Choices reached #1 onThe New York Times Best Seller list, but sold considerably less than her 2003 memoir,Living History. Interpreting what sales of the book meant for her possible political future became a subject for discussion among interested parties.
Clinton's last day as Secretary of State was February 1, 2013. As she departed from office, she indicated she was unsure of her future plans but that they did include writing another memoir to followLiving History.[1]
On April 4, 2013,Simon & Schuster, her previous publisher, announced that Clinton had signed with them for this new work, with a target publication date of June 2014.[2] LawyerRobert Barnett handled the negotiations from Clinton's side; the financial terms of any advance or royalties were not publicly disclosed.[2] TheNew York Post reported "industry speculation" as saying that her advance could be as high as $14 million.[3] Although not confirmed, that figure has been repeated by some other news sources.[4][5] From the beginning, the book was partly seen in the light of a possible Clinton bid for the2016 presidential election.[2]
Clinton was assisted in writing the book by three aides credited in the Acknowledgements section as her "book team",[6] two former State Department assistants, speechwriterDan Schwerin and researcherEthan Gelber, andTed Widmer, a speechwriter in theBill Clinton administration.[7] The first draft of the manuscript was three times its final length.[8] Clinton later said that the writing process had been "terrific" overall, but that "some days were off-the-charts wonderful and some days were not-even-on-the-charts terrible."[8]
During April 2014, the official publication date of the book was announced as June 10, 2014,[9] and the title of the book was revealed asHard Choices about a week later.[10]
The book contained 635 pages of numbered text, accompanied by three sections of plates containing a total of 100 colored photographs.
In the book, Clinton frames the foreign policy situations encountered during her tenure as a series of hard choices, especially those involving the Middle East and theArab Spring, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Russia.[11] Special attention is given to theEgyptian Revolution of 2011 and her relations with Egyptian President and longtime personal friendHosni Mubarak.[12]
Clinton sometimes delves into disagreements within theObama administration and where she stood, such as her losing the argument to arm moderate elements of theSyrian opposition.[13][14] In many other cases, however, she does not, saying such discussions "will remain private to honor the code of confidentiality that should exist between a president and his Secretary of State, especially while he is still in office."[11]
A chapter of the book dealing with the2012 Benghazi attack – in which the U.S.diplomatic mission inBenghazi, Libya, was attacked, resulting in the deaths of theU.S. ambassador to that country,J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans – was leaked toPolitico.[15] It reiterates the explanations for what happened that Clinton and her supporters had previously made.[14]
Clinton also delves into some personal aspects of her life and career, including getting past any hard feelings towards Obama fromher 2008 presidential campaign, events in her family including her daughterChelsea Clinton's wedding, and glimpses of personal interaction with citizens of other countries during her travels as secretary.[13] The book also addresses the disappointment of her 2008 loss, and for the first time fully recants her 2002 vote on theIraq War Resolution that cost her in that campaign, writing that "I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn't alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple."[12][16]
The book concludes with some general thoughts about her visions for America going forward,[12] but it shed no light on whether she would run for president in 2016, saying only, "[t]he time for another hard choice will come soon."[13]
Excerpts of the books came out early. The first was in early May 2014, whenVogue published an excerpt in celebration ofMother's Day that was about and dedicated to Clinton's motherDorothy Rodham, who had died during Clinton's time as secretary.[15] Simon & Schuster released an Author's Note explaining some of Clinton's perspectives on the book.[15] A video appeared on the book'sFacebook page the following day.[17] A cover appearance onPeople magazine was also made to promote the book.[18]
Later, the chapter of the book dealing with the Benghazi attack was leaked toPolitico.[15] Observers suspected this was done to get news about it out of the way early so it would not dominate later coverage of the book as a whole.[15][18] Shortly before the book's publication date, a passage that dealt with the now-repatriated soldierBowe Bergdahl was made public as well.[15] The promotional book roll-out was staffed by veterans of political campaigns and political communications efforts, rather than the publicists who usually conduct such efforts.[15]
There was competition among top news anchors and interviewers to get the first interviews with Clinton about the book.[19] In the end, Clinton sat down with several of them;[17] the first went toABC News'Diane Sawyer and aired on June 9.[20] The interviews themselves sometimes made news on topics unrelated to those covered by the book, such as Clinton's description to Sawyer of her and Bill's financial state as they left the White House ("dead broke") and an exchange withNPR'sTerry Gross on Clinton's evolving views onsame-sex marriage.[8][21] A later, unannounced appearance onThe Colbert Report earned her some positive notices for a comic touch in her mock exchanges with hostStephen Colbert.[22]
A promotional book tour in the United States and Canada began on June 10 with a book signing at aBarnes & Noble store in New York that attracted over a thousand people.[23] Other events, sometimes multiple per day,[8] included a public discussion forum in Chicago with MayorRahm Emanuel, a former Clinton administration aide.[24] When signing books, she just wrote "Hillary";[25] no signing of personal items or extra messages were allowed.[26] Clinton's longtime aideHuma Abedin was in charge of managing each event.[21]
The tour events had the air of campaign stops.[8][26][27] Each brought considerable local media attention.[27] The independentSuperPAC known asReady for Hillary parked a "Hillary Bus" nearby and handed out stickers and posters and signed up volunteers.[24][26][28] She herself has never gone on the bus;The Washington Post described it as "a campaign bus before there is even a campaign".[28]
Meanwhile, theRepublican National Committee had an intern go around greeting attendees in a large orange squirrel suit.[8] It wore a shirt with the message "Another Clinton in the White House is Nuts" and was accompanied by other staffers handing out sheets with anti-Clinton talking points.[27] During one promotional appearance in Washington, D.C., Clinton went up to the orange figure and said, "Hello, Mr. Squirrel, how are you? I wanted you to get you a copy of my book," adding, "you bring a smile to a lot of people's faces." The copy she gave the squirrel was inscribed, "Squirrel – Please make a hard choice and read my book! Hillary".[29]
In early July, Clinton went to Europe to stage promotional appearances for the book, visiting England, Germany, and France.[30] Book signings back in the U.S. continued for the rest of that month.[30] The length of the promotional tour recalled her heavy travel schedule as Secretary of State,[30] and largely put to rest questions about her health that had circulated among some since her concussion and blood clot treatment in late 2012.[31] While the appearances and the news coverage of some of her statements during the tour exposed some of Clinton's strengths and weaknesses as a public figure, they did not change Clinton's poll approval numbers.[31]
Initial reviews forHard Choices were generally mixed to favorable.[8][32][33]
Writing forThe New York Times, longtime book criticMichiko Kakutani said that the volume is better than Clinton's previous memoir and thatHard Choices "turns out to be a subtle, finely calibrated work that provides a portrait of the former secretary of state and former first lady as a heavy-duty policy wonk."[18]David Ignatius, writing inThe Washington Post, said the memoir "begins and ends in the empty voice of a campaign speech. But in between, it contains a clear and at times riveting account of Hillary Rodham Clinton's four years as secretary of state."[34] Robin Abcarian of theLos Angeles Times assessed it as "a richly detailed and compelling chronicle of Clinton's role in the foreign initiatives and crises that defined the first term of the Obama administration ... told from the point of view of a policy wonk."[35]
John Dickerson ofSlate magazine characterized it as "a risk-free telling of Clinton's world travels" and compared it unfavorably toDuty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, the recent account byRobert Gates, Clinton's cabinet colleague as Secretary of Defense.[14] Dickerson added, "Clinton's account is the low-salt, low-fat, low-calorie offering with vanilla pudding as the dessert. She goes on at great length, but not great depth."[14] Michael Scherer ofTime magazine declared, "This is a campaign book, written by a candidate (via her speechwriters), processed through a political machine, and delivered to the public with the contradictory goals of depicting the author as a decisive leader and not betraying any evidence of leadership that would turn a voter off."[36] Ed Pilkington ofThe Guardian wrote that it was a less overt campaign manifesto than Barack Obama'sThe Audacity of Hope had been in 2006, but "still manages to adroitly position Clinton for a 2016 presidential bid."[12]Peter Baker of theNew York Times Book Review compared it somewhat unfavorably with former State SecretaryDean Acheson's 1969 memoir,Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department, concluding his review by alluding to Clinton's possible presidential aspirations by saying that "Acheson won a Pulitzer Prize for his memoir. Clinton seems to have a bigger prize in mind."[37]
By the time of the book's publication, it was said to have already received one million pre-orders.[17] In actuality, Simon & Schuster said that it during its first week on sale, it sold over 100,000 copies,[38] a figure supported by extrapolation of the underlyingNielsen BookScan data.[39] It debuted at number one onThe New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction.[38] During its second and third weeks of availability, sales ofHard Choices declined markedly, but were still enough to keep it atop theTimes Best Seller list.[40][41] In the fourth week, sales declined again and the book surrendered the top spot on theTimes Best Seller list toEdward Klein'sBlood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas, a lurid and lightly sourced account of purported rivalries between the two couples and within each marriage.[42] By this point,Hard Choices had sold some 177,000 physical copies.[42] By the end of July, the book had sold about 250,000 copies overall, including an estimate for e-book sales.[43] In all, it spent twelve weeks onThe New York Times Best Seller list, nine of them in the top five.[44]
Whether sales for the book were living up to expectations, or indicated a lack of public interest in hearing from Clinton, became an immediate subject forpublic relations and political spin from interested parties.[4][39][42] Its sales were better than those of memoirs by other former members of the Obama administration, but were considerably less than they had been in the comparable period for Clinton's first memoirLiving History.[40] The publisher explained this as partly due to the differing contents of the two memoirs and partly due to the declining market for physical, nonfiction books over the decade between the two.[38] In any case, Simon & Schuster was unlikely to make back Clinton's advance or to sell all the copies it had shipped.[42]Politico termed the book's sales "a solid figure in a depleted publishing industry but far from the juggernaut her backers hoped for."[43]
The book continued to accumulate sales into the year following its publication. By March 2015, NielsenBookScan had it selling 264,000 copies,[45] and figure that rose to 280,000 copies by July 2015[46] and 292,200 copies by March 2016.[47] By mid-2015, Clinton had earned more than $5 million in royalties from the book.[48] Compared to recent books published bythe many 2016 Republican presidential candidates, her sales were well short ofBen Carson'sOne Nation: What We Can All Do To Save America's Future, but were well ahead of those of any of the others,[45][49] with only the combined sales of a pair of books byDonald Trump coming close.[47] By late November 2015, counting both print and e-books,Time magazine saidHard Choices had sold a little over 340,000 units.[50]
Simon & Schuster viewed international and foreign language sales as key to the book's potential for success.[40] On its initial release date of June 10, it was published in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, India, Germany, the Netherlands, and France.[40] A Spanish language translation,Decisiones difíciles, was released on June 24 in the U.S.[51] Altogether, foreign rights to the book were sold in sixteen countries.[52]
While also available in Hong Kong and Taiwan,Hard Choices was effectively banned in mainland China as publishers there declined to purchase either the translation or English-language distribution rights for the book.[52][53][54] Although Chinese publishers did not offer a specific reason for declining to buy the book, Simon & Schuster asserted that the ban was politically motivated as import agencies and publishers were fearful of retaliation by the Chinese government for printing material that was too politically sensitive, such as the chapter-length coverage of Chinese dissidentChen Guangcheng and Clinton's generally critical comments about the Chinese government.[52][53][55]
The paperback version ofHard Choices followed the hardcover and was released on April 28, 2015, two weeks after the announcement ofher 2016 presidential campaign. The new epilogue from the paperback edition, titled "A New Chapter", was initially published byThe Huffington Post by Clinton on April 10.[56] The paperback version also has a new cover, in color, in which Clinton is angled away from the camera, turning her head and smiling slightly, while dressed in a blue, collared shirt and wearing bold silver earrings.[57]
