Dreams from my Father--A story of race and inheritance; The Audacity of Hope--Thoughts on reclaiming the American dream.

AuthorNeophytou, Maria
PositionBook review

Barack Obama, THREE RIVERS PRESS, 1995

Barack Obama, CANONGATE BOOKS, 2007

The story of the Obama phenomenon so far already has the makings of political legend. Barack Obama started to generate waves when he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. It was on the back of this achievement that he was approached to write his first book, Dreams from My Father, in 1995. After a spell in the Illinois state legislature, Obama staged an extraordinary primary win to become the Democrat candidate for the Illinois US Senate seat. In a seven-person field, he polled 53 per cent of the vote, including wins in the 'collar counties' around Chicago, which conventional wisdom held would never vote for a black candidate. He went on to take the seat from the Republicans, becoming the only African American in the Senate and only the third in US history.

On its re-release in 2004, the audio-book of Dreams from My Father earned him a Grammy Award for best spoken word album, and his second book, The Audacity of Hope, shot to the top of the New York Times and Amazon bestseller lists. His talent for captivating, fluid prose is matched by a gift for rhetoric; his 2004 keynote electrified the Democrat National Convention, inspiring a devoted and ever growing following both nationally and around the world.

Earlier this year in Springfield Illinois, just like another tall, willowy, relatively inexperienced lawyer who 150 years ago took on and beat an array of heavyweight opponents to become President, Obama declared he was running for the White House. It was only natural that he did so on the same steps on which Abraham Lincoln had famously declared that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand.' Since then he has gone on to break all fundraising records, overtaking rival Hillary Clinton with a far higher number of individual donations. All this despite refusing to take money from special interests. His rallies and speeches across the US draw record crowds, and not just in the 'blue' states; 20,000 people braved a rainy day in Austin Texas to hear him speak, reportedly one of the largest turnouts for a political event in Texan history.

The question we are left with is, will he be able to add 'first black president' to this catalogue of achievements, and if so, what kind of president will he be?

If we are searching for clues about the man rather than the presidential candidate Dreams from My Father is the most rewarding read, a candid and moving account of Obama's early struggles with notions of identity and race. Obama was born to a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, who met as...

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