The concluding volume of the life of an exceptionally brilliant polymath chronicles Luce's progress from her days in Congress, elected in 1943. In 1946, she gave up her House seat and soon emerged as a formidable television personality, campaigning so spectacularly for Eisenhower that he made her ambassador to Italy. She went on to become a prolific journalist and magnetic public speaker, as well as a playwright, screenwriter, pioneer scuba diver, early experimenter in psychedelic drugs, and grande dame of the GOP in the Reagan era. Tempestuously married to Henry Luce, the publisher of Time Inc., she endured his infidelities while pursuing her own, and remained a practiced vamp well into old age. In 1973, she was appointed by Nixon to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a position she continued to hold in the Ford and Reagan administrations. Her death at 84 ended a life that qualifies Clare Boothe Luce for the title of "Woman of the Century."--From publisher description.