From the Publisher

By Elizabeth P. Valk

To understand Bill Clinton better, TIME contributor Garry Wills decided to look past the Democratic presidential nominee's national persona and examine him in the context of the idiosyncratic state he has governed for 12 years. Wills, a distinguished historian and journalist, made two circuits of Arkansas, driving from Hope in the south through Hot Springs and Little Rock to Fayetteville in the north. He talked not only to Clinton but also to the candidate's friends, relatives and neighbors, and he soaked up the landscape that produced the man. "I think the rest of the country has trouble understanding Southerners," says Wills, "but since both sides of my family come from the South, I have always been fascinated by the region and respectful of things like its religiosity."

The result of Wills' sojourns is this week's probing study of Clinton's roots. Wills, of course, is no stranger to the task of getting inside the mind of American politicians, having written six books on American Presidents as well as many in-depth articles on incumbents and would-bes. Since he profiled Ronald Reagan in 1987, Wills has written 15 articles for TIME about the forces and people that shape America's political soul. So prolific is this one-time Jesuit seminarian that he occasionally loses count of the number of his books. "Fourteen, or maybe 16" is his guess; but his publisher, Simon & Schuster, puts the total at 17.

No. 17 is Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, which is winning enthusiastic reviews -- and putting Wills on the receiving end of some pointed questions. "Mrs. Clinton asked what Lincoln would be reading and saying today," recalls Wills, but, ever the scrupulous historian, he demurred at venturing a guess. He does offer one comparison between Clinton and another President, fellow Southerner Jimmy Carter. "Carter was bright and impressed me, but he was completely bound by the South," he says. "Clinton is an authentic Southerner but has a wide range of friends and contacts all over the world." Wills declines to push the comparison further, noting that the clamor for predictions is a "true evil in politics."

It is hard to imagine that Wills has much time for relaxation, but he claims to be able to squeeze in trips to the opera and other cultural events. He tries to take particular advantage of his journalistic wanderings away from - his home in Evanston, Ill. This week he hopes to see the Kirov Opera while in New York City for the Democratic Convention.