Fiona Hill situates her memoir within the context of preparing for her testimony before Congress in President Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment trial. She has to carefully consider her outfit to ensure she appears credible and doesn’t distract the audience with anything too flashy. Michelle Obama’s stylist assists her with choosing her look, and though Hill never imagined this life for herself, she realizes just how critical her statement will be for the country.

Hill comes from a mining town in northern England, yet she ended up as a leading Russian policy expert serving under former President Donald Trump, during which time she has witnessed significant changes in the political and cultural climate of the US, in particular more divisive partisanship, which Russian President Vladimir Putin stoked and relishes. In her testimony, she has to address the 2019 phone conversation between President Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky. She knows the historical significance of this moment.

Her story is extremely unlikely—she is an exception in a world where social immobility is the norm. She is writing to examine how growing social immobility could lead to democracies like the US to succumb to the same fate as modern Russia.