The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America's First Ladies

· Macmillan Audio · Narrated by Azadeh Moaveni and Lipica Shah
Audiobook
15 hr 37 min
Unabridged
Eligible
This book will become available on November 17, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.

About this audiobook

"Masterful." —Kate Brower Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of The Residence

An in-depth examination of women and power in Washington through the lens of the complex relationship between First Ladies and their staffs by Pulitzer finalist Azadeh Moaveni.

This program features an introduction read by the author.

It could be said that every First Lady runs a court—a hub of political power within the White House, a place where enterprising aides vie for influence and patronage, a theatre of intrigue and counsel where great heights are uniquely possible, but so too is ruin. And the First Lady's aides are at the center of it all.

Behind the scenes throughout history, East Wing staffers have boldly advanced civil rights legislation, defused tension with America’s enemies, brought more women into government, and backed abortion rights. Their relationships and problems, their management and cultivation of the media landscape and the Georgetown social scene, are at the heart of the forces that have shaped the institution of the East Wing.

In The East Wing, academic and journalist Azadeh Moaveni blends original reporting, including extensive interviews with key players from past East Wings, with expert research and analysis to take listeners deep inside the fascinating and high stakes world of the First Lady’s office like never before.

Spanning the most defining decades of the twentieth century, from the New Deal era, to the myth-making Kennedys, to the turbulent, MAGA-influenced 2020s, The East Wing is the captivating true story of the First Lady’s staffers and their role in the executive branch of governance, as well as the evolution of female leadership in our country.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press

"Masterful." —Kate Brower Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of The Residence An in-depth examination of women and power in Washington through the lens of the complex relationship between First Ladies and their staffs by Pulitzer finalist Azadeh Moaveni. This program features an introd...

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About the author

Azadeh Moaveni is Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University, where she directs the program in Global Journalism. She has spent over two decades traveling the world, covering women’s movements across three continents and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, and writing extensively about gender and women’s quest for political leadership. She has served as correspondent for TIME magazine and the Los Angeles Times, a fellow at the New America Foundation, and director of the Gender and Conflict program at the International Crisis Group, where her work examined how women exercise political influence behind the scenes. A Pulitzer finalist, she is the author of Lipstick Jihad, Honeymoon in Tehran, and most recently, Guest House for Young Widows, which was short-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Rathbones Folio Prize, and long-listed for the Orwell Prize in Political Writing. Her writing appears regularly in The London Review of Books, The New York Times, and The New Yorker.
Azadeh Moaveni is Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University, where she directs the program in Global Journalism. She has spent over two decades traveling the world, covering women’s movements across three continents and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, and writing extensi...

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