A Fighting Chance

Books

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works-and really doesn't As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher-an ambitious goal, given her family's modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but fifteen years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington DC to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws? Thus began an impolite education into the bare-knuckled, often dysfunctional ways of Washington. She fought for better bankruptcy laws for ten years and lost. She tried to hold the federal government accountable during the financial crisis but became a target of the big banks. She came up with the idea for a new agency designed to protect ...