During the collapse of European communism, the breakdown of the Soviet Union, and the terror of September 11th, Condoleezza Rice was in the White House, serving as an advisor to two U.S. presidents. In ways though, she has rubbing shoulders with history for decades: As an eight-year old schoolgirl, she witnessed a vicious racist bombing that killed one of her friends: "I did not see it happen, but I heard it happen, and I felt it happen." The "extraordinary, ordinary people" in the title of Rice's new memoir are, of course, her parents, the minister and his teacher wife who shepherded her through the trauma to become the world leader she became. A Barnes & Noble Bestseller in hardcover; now in paperback and NOOK Book.