The first full biography of Colin Powell, from his Bronx childhood to his military career to his controversial tenure as secretary of state, with a new afterword detailing his life after the Bush White House.

Over the course of a lifetime of service to his country, Colin Powell became a national hero, a beacon of wise leadership and one of the most trusted political figures in America. In Soldier , the award-winning Washington Post editor Karen DeYoung takes us from Powell’s humble roots as the son of Jamaican immigrants to his meteoric rise through the military ranks during the Cold War and Desert Storm to his agonizing deliberations over whether to run for president. Culminating in his stint as Secretary of State in the Bush Administration and his role in making the case for war with Iraq, this is a sympathetic but objective portrait of a great but fallible man.