Written from the heart, not from the brain, this definitive autobiography takes readers on a journey through the forty-third President's life, including his hardscrabble beginnings as the child of West Texas oil millionaires, the unparalleled academic performance that earned him entry into the finest East Coast schools, and his proud service to the country as an occasional member of the National Guard some time around 1972 or 1973. Bush proudly recounts his years as a successful oil-business failure and the owner of a baseball team. The great man who emerges from these pages displays his mother's steely resolve and vindictive temper, his father's keen mastery of language, and his own unique gift of deciding. His gripping life story deepens when a faith in God hits him one day "like a bottle of Jack on an empty stomach," and he has an encounter with the Prince of Peace that sets George W. Bush on a path to become the greatest War President in modern history.

To help craft this lasting account of his life and leadership, George W. Bush turned to two writers who have earned not only his trust but his deep friendship: Scott Dikkers, editor-in-chief of The Onion and coauthor of the #1 bestseller Our Dumb Century, and Peter Hilleren, former producer for public radio and some of the nation's finest public-access cable-television stations. Dikkers and Hilleren call on their finely honed journalism expertise every week to write and record the President's weekly radio address on WeeklyRadioAddress.com. Their work on such stirring addresses as "June Terror Update" and "The Pope Is Dead" made them the ideal choice to meet the challenge of chronicling the visionary mark left on history by its shining light, President George W. Bush.