The Prince of Tennessee: Al Gore Meets His Fate

After losing the closest American election in years, Al Gore remains a fascinating political figure, a man both revered and reviled. Drawing on documents, letters, and interviews with more than three hundred people, including six lengthy conversations with the vice president, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima look closely at the forces that have shaped Gore's life and career to explore the man behind the contradictory public persona. Beginning with Gore's earliest years -- when this son of a senator was torn between elite Washington and rural Tennessee -- one is struck by the image of a young American prince burdened by expectations of his likely political fate. With a new afterword written after the election, The Prince of Tennessee depicts Gore as an intelligent and competent man whose struggles with self-doubt and insecurity made him one of our least understood presidential candidates.

David Maraniss is the bestselling author of When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi and First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton. He is an associate editor at The Washington Post where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1993. He lives in Washington, D.C.