Laying bare the family struggles that shaped her early life she also examines the ancestral legacies that influenced her. Rice's elders-immigrants on one side and descendants of slaves on the other-encouraged each generation to rise. And rise they did, in uniform and in the pulpit, as educators, community leaders, and public servants.

Susan too rose rapidly. She served throughout the Clinton administration, becoming one of the nation's youngest assistant secretaries of state and, later, one of President Obama's most trusted advisors.

Rice provides an insider's account of some of the most complex issues confronting the United States over three decades, from "Black Hawk Down" in Somalia to the genocide in Rwanda, and from conflicts in Libya and Syria to the Ebola epidemic, a secret channel to Iran, and the opening to Cuba during the Obama years.