Although Katharine Graham is surely one of the most powerful women in the world, few people are aware of the extent of her influence. World leaders meet with her; presidents meet with her; anyone moving up in the circles of power in the nation's capital tries to meet with the owner of the Washington Post and Newsweek--a communications conglomerate.

Katharine the Great is a full-length biography of Kay Graham, a woman born into wealth and power. The second daughter of multimillionaires Eugene Meyer and Agnes Ernst, she grew up among the elite. Her mother's friends included Picasso, Rodin, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Thomas Mann.

She went to Vassar and the University of Chicago. After a brief stay on the West Coast she returned to the East, where her father had just purchased the Washington Post. When Katharine married, her husband, the brilliant, mercurial Philip Graham, became publisher of the Post.

Katharine Graham settled down to home life while her husband ran the newspaper. But during the 1950s Philip Graham was battling manic depression, and their marriage suffered. In 1963, twenty-five years to the day after he took over the Washington Post Company, Philip Graham committed suicide.

Middle-aged and inexperienced, Katharine Graham took over the newspaper. Together with Ben Bradlee she made the Post a successful and powerful newspaper. In 1970 she published the Pentagon Papers to international repercussions. In 1972 the Post began the Watergate investigation, which led to Richard Nixon's resignation from the White House.

From the Meyer Family to Phil Graham's era at the Post, to the CIA and Deep Throat, and beyond to the changing politics of the Reagan-Bush years, Deborah Davis reveals how Katharine Graham has helped to shape the destiny of the United States.