The first biography of the Speaker of the House in a decade, Ball's nuanced, page-turning portrait shows Pelosi through a thoroughly modern lens, based on exclusive interviews with the Speaker and deep background reporting. Since the Democrats took back the House in the 2018 midterm elections, much of the party and the country have suddenly decided that Nancy Pelosi is not the synthesis of everything wrong, outdated, and out of touch in the Democratic Party. Suddenly, she's an icon. A hero of the women's movement. The most qualified politician to take on Donald Trump. Pelosi has been reviled by Republicans and Democrats alike for much of her long career in Washington, yet she easily retook the speakership in 2019 with the nearly unanimous support of her party.

She's the iconic leader who puts Donald Trump in his place, the woman with the toughness to take on a lawless president and defend American democracy. Ever since the Democrats took back the House in the 2018 midterm elections, Nancy Pelosi has led the opposition with strategic mastery and inimitable elan. It's a remarkable comeback for the veteran politician who for years was demonized by the right and taken for granted by many in her own party--even though, as speaker under President Barack Obama, she deserves much of the credit for epochal liberal accomplishments from universal access to health care to saving the US economy from collapse, from reforming Wall Street to allowing gay people to serve openly in the military. How did an Italian grandmother in four-inch heels become the greatest legislator since LBJ? Ball's nuanced, page-turning portrait takes readers inside the life and times of this historic and underappreciated figure. Based on exclusive interviews with the Speaker and