An Unsung 20th Century Power Player, Pamela Harriman

×

Expand

Charleston Library Society

An Unsung 20th Century Power Player, Pamela Harriman

Just days after publication, join CLS in partnership with the Royal Oak Foundation to welcome UK-based Sonia Purnell, bestselling author and journalist, for her latest book, Kingmaker, an electrifying re-examination and eye-popping tale of the money, politics, and fabulous clothes of Pamela Harriman, one of the 20th century’s greatest unsung power players. Known for her lively writing style and meticulous research on important historical figures, Purnell reveals a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources that unveil for the first time, the spectacular story and true legacy of Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law and the indelible mark she left on the world today.

About the Book

From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of A Woman of No Importance, an electrifying re-examination of one of the 20th century’s greatest unsung power players. When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. At the young age of 20 she became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy’s ‘uncrowned king’ on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, Kingmaker re-asserts Harriman’s rightful place at the heart of history.

About Sonia Purnell

Sonia Purnell is a journalist and bestselling author known for her lively writing style and meticulous research with a growing readership across the world. Her first book – the unauthorised biography of Boris Johnson called Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition – was long listed for the Orwell prize in 2011. Her second book, First Lady in the UK and Clementine in the US, (a finalist for the Plutarch prize) revealed for the first time the vital role played in Winston Churchill’s career by his wife Clementine and has been optioned to be made into a Hollywood movie. Her new work, A Woman of No Importance, is the astonishing but true-life tale of a female spy in WWII, Virginia Hall, a young American socialite with a wooden leg, who helped fan the flames of French Resistance. It will be published in March in the UK and elsewhere in April and the rights have already been sold to Paramount for a major film starring Daisy Ridley.

Sonia Purnell’s work is ‘brilliant’ (The Independent), and ‘indispensable’ (The Guardian) because ‘she dares to speak truth unto power’. The Wall Street Journal described her biography of Clementine Churchill as ‘a fine book’ and an ‘astute and pacey’ account, while the New York Times described her work as ‘engrossing’ and the Daily Telegraph as ‘admirable’.

She has written for most national newspapers in the UK, several prestigious publications in other countries including the Wall Street Journal in the US, and lives in London with her husband and two sons.