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4.36 AVERAGE
4.36 AVERAGE
This autobiography really is something else. Only a beautiful gifted and eloquent writer could make discussions about policy interesting…
Really fascinating to get a glimpse of the frustrations and comprises you have a make as a politician just to get something done, and it will never be good enough no matter what you do.
Obama is right in saying that due to the hype surrounding his campaign and election he was always going to let people down - he couldn’t break the system and start again (as much as I’m sure he would have like to). Not to mention the horrendous mess the previous administration left behind.
Would definitely recommend reading this and so looking forward to part two.
Really fascinating to get a glimpse of the frustrations and comprises you have a make as a politician just to get something done, and it will never be good enough no matter what you do.
Obama is right in saying that due to the hype surrounding his campaign and election he was always going to let people down - he couldn’t break the system and start again (as much as I’m sure he would have like to). Not to mention the horrendous mess the previous administration left behind.
Would definitely recommend reading this and so looking forward to part two.
This is a good behind-the-scenes look at Obama's presidential candidacy and first term in office, but it felt incomplete. The first half of the book was the most interesting, and it fell off hard after that for me. The details became more cumbersome, the rhetoric became much more anti-republican, and I found myself agreeing with Obama's self-criticism in the prologue that a better author could have fit more content into fewer words. Still, this is a good read for the first-person perspective.
It's just to long. I have 24 HOURS LEFT
I listened to this and it took my forever, and not just because it's 29 hours long. As a political memoir, it's engaging and instructive. As a memoir, it is a pale shadow of Michelle's Becoming. It was interesting to recall the various crisis is 2008-2011 but one can only make a summit sound so interesting. The most rewarding bits were the personal - interactions with WH staff and family. It was a treat to listen to Obama read the audiobook,
I need to talk to Barack about the length of this. But loved it. I am a fan of all things behind the scenes. I may not pass a test on the sections on Libya. But a really interesting read.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
slow-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
"I’m convinced that the pandemic we’re currently living through is both a manifestation of and a mere interruption in the relentless march toward an interconnected world, one in which peoples and cultures can’t help but collide. In that world—of global supply chains, instantaneous capital transfers, social media, transnational terrorist networks, climate change, mass migration, and ever-increasing complexity—we will learn to live together, cooperate with one another, and recognize the dignity of others, or we will perish. And so the world watches America—the only great power in history made up of people from every corner of the planet, comprising every race and faith and cultural practice—to see if our experiment in democracy can work. To see if we can do what no other nation has ever done. To see if we can actually live up to the meaning of our creed."
Barack Obama is one of my heroes. Partly, it's because his American experience mirrors my own - "a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him too." He is the last prominent politician in modern America who made more than a perfunctory effort to imbue unity and hope in the masses, to remind us that we agree far more often than we disagree. Over the past few months, I've read many members of the commentariat minimize Obama's legacy. He was not legislatively successful, and the end of his presidency inaugurated Donald Trump's rise in American political life and all the division and nastiness that followed. To a large extent, these failures are of no fault of his own. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for only the first two years of his Presidency, a period that was consumed by managing the financial crisis that he inherited from George W. Bush. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner ensured that passing major legislation was impossible while Republicans controlled Congress. To me, what made Obama such an amazing President are more intangible qualities. I would describe Barack Obama in the same way that he describes Chicago Mayor Harold Wilson - "it wasn't so much what he did as how he made you feel. Like anything was possible. Like the world was yours to remake."
A Promised Land is not like most political memoirs, with wide margins, large fonts, and a regurgitation of talking points. Obama is thoughtful and humble, reflecting on how Presidential campaigns can glorify candidates, his fears that he would let down his supporters, and the loneliness he felt holding the nation's highest office. He is as eloquent in his prose as he is in his public speaking. The story he tells is insightful, no matter what your politics are. I can't wait for the second volume.
Barack Obama is one of my heroes. Partly, it's because his American experience mirrors my own - "a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him too." He is the last prominent politician in modern America who made more than a perfunctory effort to imbue unity and hope in the masses, to remind us that we agree far more often than we disagree. Over the past few months, I've read many members of the commentariat minimize Obama's legacy. He was not legislatively successful, and the end of his presidency inaugurated Donald Trump's rise in American political life and all the division and nastiness that followed. To a large extent, these failures are of no fault of his own. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for only the first two years of his Presidency, a period that was consumed by managing the financial crisis that he inherited from George W. Bush. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner ensured that passing major legislation was impossible while Republicans controlled Congress. To me, what made Obama such an amazing President are more intangible qualities. I would describe Barack Obama in the same way that he describes Chicago Mayor Harold Wilson - "it wasn't so much what he did as how he made you feel. Like anything was possible. Like the world was yours to remake."
A Promised Land is not like most political memoirs, with wide margins, large fonts, and a regurgitation of talking points. Obama is thoughtful and humble, reflecting on how Presidential campaigns can glorify candidates, his fears that he would let down his supporters, and the loneliness he felt holding the nation's highest office. He is as eloquent in his prose as he is in his public speaking. The story he tells is insightful, no matter what your politics are. I can't wait for the second volume.