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Peter Ackroyd
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Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall, discusses her Booker shortlisted novel at the the London bookstore, Daunt Books (3 part video)
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Author Biography |
Browse a biography of Madeleine Albright.
Plus: Book summary, excerpts and reviews at BookBrowse.com. |
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Biography
Madeleine Korbel was born on May 15, 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Her father, Josef
Korbel, was a member of the Czech diplomatic service who worked in Belgrade,
London, and Prague before he fled with his family after a Communist
coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948. The family were granted political asylum in the United
States, and Josef began working at the University of Denver, where he later founded a graduate school of international relations.
She became a naturalized U.S.
citizen and learned to speak English without an accent by the time she graduated
high school. She is also fluent in Czech, French, Polish, and
Russian.
She went on to Wellesley College in 1959 where she earned
a degree in political science. Very shortly after graduating she married Joseph Medill Patterson Albright, a
member of one of the nation’s prominent newspaper dynasties. Between 1960 and
1967 they had three daughters, Anne and Alice (twins), and Katherine. In 1968
Albright earned a degree in public
law and government from Columbia University and Joseph was made
the Washington bureau chief of Newsday (a family publication) causing the
Albrights to relocate to Washington, DC.
Albright began her political
career raising funds and advising on policy issues for Senator Edmund S. Muskie,
a senator from Maine who made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 1972. In 1976, during Jimmy Carter's
presidency, Albright became the congressional liaison to the National
Security Council. She took a
step back from politics after Carter lost to Regan in 1980. Her
husband left her in 1982, after which she began teaching part-time at Georgetown
University’s School of Foreign Service, which led to a position as a professor
of international affairs and the director of the Women in Foreign Service
program.
In 1984, Albright joined the campaign of Democratic presidential contender
Walter Mondale, focusing on foreign policy issues. This solidified her
reputation within the Democratic party as an expert on strategic foreign policy
and as a specialist on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Albright
met Bill Clinton while serving as
the senior policy adviser to Michael Dukakis during his 1988 presidential run.
Four years later, as the President Elect, Clinton named her the U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations.
Albright has always struggled to work her way up the ranks of advisers and
strategists, fighting against the 'old boy' character of the Democratic foreign policy
establishment. This commitment paid off in 1997 when she was sworn in as America’s first female Secretary of State.
As Secretary of State, Albright advocated a hard-line
strategy regarding international crimes against democracy; stating that
the lesson to be learned from World War II is to fight force with force. This
strategy became particularly evident during 1999 when she became one of the
most ardent supporters of NATO’s aggressive air offensive against Yugoslavia.
She
was, and is, dedicated to protecting cultural and ethnic diversity, and
religious freedom worldwide. This interest was heightened in 1997 when
The Washington Post uncovered what Albright herself didn't know - that her heritage was Jewish,
not Catholic, as she herself had
believed up to that point. Her father had converted
from Judaism to Catholicism in order to escape persecution.
Copyright BookBrowse.com 2003. All rights reserved.
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This biography was last updated on 11/12/2003. |
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A note about the biographies
We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate. However, with over 1,500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that
some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date,
inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, please send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we replace the old with the new. |
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