A Promised Land
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency, a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
Pages: 1136 Pages
Writer: Barack Obama
Recommendations:
I realize that at first glance any criticism of this book is met with an assumption that the dislike is because of political reasons. I want you to believe me when I say that is not true. I enjoyed “Becoming” and actually think that book does a much better job giving insights into the Obama’s. My disappointment in this book is based around a few things. The first is that I grew tired of the author assuming everyone is an idiot. At one point he even says I would explain this but you wouldn’t understand it anyways. He even says that most of his voters wouldn’t understand things even if he told them, so he didn’t. The parts of this book I did enjoy is the first parts. The parts where the underdog gets a head with energizing those around him but also outworking everyone else. From here though it gets way into pandering of his friends, his wife, and those of his party. Nothing they did from that point was ever not in the best interest of the country and if you didn’t agree you were an idiot. If you had a differing opinion you were an idiot. Even if it is not said that way you can tell that is what is being said in and indirect way. In almost every Presidential memorial I have ever read the former President will talk about things he wish he had done different. Not in this book, the only time it is mentioned that something could have been done different is is under the context that he should have forced people to do things his way more.
Overall I really started to struggle with this book about the time the election was over. At this point it become clear that at this point everyone that helped get him elected that was not in his inner circle were not smartest enough to be thought of very highly. The first time in this book that the former President says he would explain it but his voters wouldn’t have understood it anyways was all I needed to hear to know what he really thought of his supporters. My recommendation is if you really want a good look at the Obama’s read Becoming, it is better written and comes from a much better perspective that not everything was great all the time and that once in a while even the Obama’s were human. If you read this book realize that you will get about 600 pages of I am great and if you don’t believe then you are then enemy and are part of the problem. I guess I expected a little more.