As National Security Advisor to the president and winner of the NAACP Image Award, Condoleezza Rice has never wasted time getting where she wants to go, and for the first time, this biography tells the story of her remarkable life -- from her precocious childhood to her dreams of becoming a concert pianist to her role as the president's most trusted advisor, following a distinguished career as scholar, professor, provost, and foreign policy advisor -- all by the age of 47.

Condi, as she is known, was named after a musical term, con dolcezza -- to play "with sweetness" -- by her music-laving parents who, both educators, set forth a standard of excellence for their only child that would give her the "twice as good" edge that was necessary to be on an even standing with her white peers in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, in 1954.
-- A sweeping, intriguing look at the Rice family legacy, from slave owners and slaves to "evangelists of education" and finally to a prominent government figure and presidential advisor
-- The big switch: why Rice changed her care