.03.21 — A Promised Land, Barack Obama
What it is?
The eagerly awaited presidential memoir of the nation’s 44th Commander in Chief traces Barack Obama’s well known, yet still inspiring journey from Chicago community organizer to President of the United States. With the former President’s early years the focus of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, this work primarily covers the events of the first two years of his presidency. Mr. Obama gives the reader an unvarnished look at the challenges he faced leading the nation during an era of immense global challenges and staunch partisanship, yet tempers it with humanizing vignettes of his personal escapes, like the weekend pickup runs organized by his body man and Duke basketball alum Reggie, which became a voting day tradition. Despite weighing in at over 700 pages, this book moves quickly, with the events of his presidency grouped into topical sections (the Affordable Care Act, climate change, the global financial crisis of 2008) and woven together deftly so that a general sense of chronology is maintained whilst avoiding the disconcerting lurches between crises of various origin that characterize the reality of holding office.
My thoughts
This book is a call to feel inspired, yet a reminder of why we should be humble. Inspired by the ability of ordinary people to call for change in a world often led by those with the incentive to slow progress at every step of the way. Humble as to the immensity of challenges society must confront during the 21st century. As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama’s stump speech was not particularly complex, yet it called to mind both messages.
“Most people, wherever they’re from, whatever they look like, are looking for the same thing… And although they don’t expect government to solve all their problems, they do know, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities government could help.”
It was a statement of hope and unity, the latter a word whose meaning has become the center of considerable attention a decade and a half later as the United States grapples with the forces of division amassing strength as early as 2009.
“The crisis had also made people more angry, more fearful that the fix was in. What Santelli understood, what McConnell and Boehner understood, was how easily that anger could be channeled, how useful fear could be.”
As a writer, part of what makes Mr. Obama so engaging and readable is his choice to succinctly address the conflicts he faced in a manner dispassionate enough so as not to further barb opponents, yet tempered with enough realism to avoid looking at the past as halcyon days. For that reason this book will stand up as a foundational text for presidential scholars as well as an engrossing read for casual readers, regardless of their own political proclivities.
