The Seduction of Hillary Rodham

The Seduction of Hillary Rodham is a 1996 book about the early years of Hillary Rodham Clinton written by once-conservative writer, later-liberal media watch dog and Clintons supporter David Brock. The book was written during the advent of Brock's political evolution, thus contains a mixed ideological viewpoint. Background After the commercial and received-ideological success of The Real Anita Hill, Brock's first book, The Free Press paid Brock a large advance to write a book about Hillary Rodham Clinton. That amount has been stated as $1 million by Brock in his 2002 memoir Blinded by the Right. In that volume, Brock claimed that he was pushed into the book assignment by what his publisher and agent wanted, but in any case, the clear expectation was that it would be a takedown in the style of his writings on Anita Hill and Bill Clinton. To fulfill this goal, Brock hired what he has termed a "small brigade of researchers" to assist him. The turn The project, however, took a different turn, and the resulting book, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, proved to be largely sympathetic to Hillary Clinton, causing surprise within the publishing industry. Having received the large advance and a tight one-year deadline from Simon & Schuster's then-conservatively focused Free Press subsidiary, Brock was under tremendous pressure to produce another bestseller. However, the book contained no major scoops. In Blinded by the Right, Brock said that he had reached a turning point; he had thoroughly examined charges against the Clintons, could not find any evidence of wrongdoing, and did not want to make any more misleading claims.