Born in 1906, Huguette Clark grew up in her family's 121-room Beaux Arts mansion in New York and was one of the leading celebrities of her day. Her father, William Andrews Clark, was a copper magnate, the second richest man in America, and not above bribing his way into the Senate.

The United States Senate has fallen on hard times. Once known as the greatest deliberative body in the world, it now has a reputation as a partisan, dysfunctional chamber. What happened to the house that forged American history's great compromises?

Increasing tension between Julius Caesar and Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) after the death of Marcus Licinius Crassus soon degenerated into military conflict.

With his hand considerably strengthened by his election as Dictator by the Senate in Rome, Caesar knew that power would only be a reality once he had militarily defeated Pompey.

Barack Obama, a black man raised by his white mother and grandparents, decided to journey to Kenya to learn more about his African father after receiving news of his death. This memoir is not about his father's life, but about Obama's, and he brings that home with an intimate tone rather than that of his public speeches. (His 2004 Democratic Convention keynote address is included at the end.)
Throughout the book, the U.S. Senator looks at race from the point of view of someone who has seen and been part of a variety of cultures, and he explains how his perspective shaped his views. The book, written in 1995, before his election to the Illinois Senate, gives listeners a chance to learn more about a young senator who has recently made news by speaking out on the Patriot Act and President Bush's next Supreme Court nomination.