New biography of Condi Rice focuses on her discipline

t is one of the paradoxes of the Bush administration that the senior official whose face is among the most recognized around the world, and who is consistently ranked as the most popular at home, is perhaps the least known. Condoleezza Rice has regularly enjoyed poll numbers 20 points higher than those of the man she serves; in 2006 she topped an Esquire survey of the women men would most like to take as a date to a dinner party, ahead of Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Aniston. Yet, while most Americans probably have a good sense of what Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell have stood for, not many could confidently set out the beliefs of the current secretary of state. She is highly visible, speaks often and yet is strangely enigmatic.

“Twice as Good,” by Marcus Mabry, the chief of correspondents for Newsweek, works hard to solve the Rice puzzle. It digs deep into the story of her family, including her slave ancestors, and the hugely influential figure of her father, the Rev. John Rice. We follow the family’s journey from segregation in Alabama to educational opportunity in Colorado and finally to California. We learn much — with a detail uncommon in a political biography — of her almost frighteningly intense childhood.