Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Author - Barack Obama ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Crown was reviewed on 11-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0307383415 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance Reference Book. Classifications : Blue Politics Political Parties Specialty Stores Books African-American & Black Ethnic & National Biographies & Memoirs Subjects Books General Ethnic & National Biographies & Memoirs Subjects Books Po . Click the following link to view the cover of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

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1) Hardcover Book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Crown. This book has received a lot of scrutiny from Obama´s detractors since he ran for president. It has also disappointed a lot of his fans.

This was written when Obama was much younger than he is now, so it should be read as a memoir about a reflection on family, race, identity. The book was clearly written by a man who knew he was going to go into politics, so it is not without its agenda. Despite this agenda (which is not overbearing), it still reads more like an honest self-reflection from a man starting to make his mark on the world. The honesty is unparalleled by any biography of an American politician I can think of (please tell me if I´m wrong) and that is very refreshing.

Those looking for any sort of insight into his policy ideas while president can use some inductive reasoning to fill out what ever they want (He´s a socialist! He wants to cut taxes! He wants to raise taxes.) This should be avoided because his views since this book have changed on a lot of things. What you can see is how astute his observations are about a wide variety of people gained from his consistent outsider status. Given that he was relatively young when he penned this, one can only assume he has only matured farther.

Problems include some muddled prose when he tries to "out eloquence" himself (a criticism he admits in the preface to a newer addition), a lack of a family tree (it is a book about family), and about a fifty extra pages.

If you read this book for non-political reasons, you will enjoy most of his prose, observations on Americans, and honesty about himself: a young man of unusual origins struggling with an identity and lack of a father figure.) I would recommend reading it like this instead of digging for out-of-context snippets to further your preconceived notions of him (Messiah, drug-abuser, communist, racist, best politician ever, etc.)¤

2) Hardcover Book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Crown. I bought this book because I wanted to learn more about Obama before the election. It was well-written and interesting. Also, because it was written before he became a politician, I expected it to be more honest than his other book, "Audacity of Hope," which I have no intention of reading.

What is scary about it, though, is that he is very honest about how he came to reject his White heritage and embrace a kind of Black nationalism and racial separatism. (He certainly doesn´t sound like that when he is on the campaign trail.)

Despite the fact that he doesn´t experience much in the way of discrimination growing up, the turning point for him is when he goes to a "Black" party with some White friends, and the White friends soon leave, apparently because they were uncomfortable around a large group of Blacks. Obama is greatly offended by this and that seems to be when he "breaks" from his part-White identity.

What really shocked me was when he explained his opposition to inter-racial marriage. I´m Asian and my husband is White. I found it hard to believe that, being a product of a mixed marriage himself, Obama could have such views. He dated a White woman who loves him but he is against marrying her just because she is White. He explains that he doesn´t want his children to be raised into "White American culture." You would think that Obama´s own experience shows that children of mixed marriages do not necessarily assimilate into the culture of the White side. I find my marriage more interesting because of my and my husband´s different ethnic backgrounds. Our children are being raised with an awareness of both their American and Chinese heritage, and there should have been no reason why Obama couldn´t have raised his children in a similar fashion with a White wife.

I really got a picture of a man who was raised by Whites but who rejects them in favor of his African heritage, despite the fact that his African father essentially abandons him.¤

3) Hardcover Book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Crown. Obama does an amazing job at detailing his life story and connecting it to his continued struggle to find his true identity. Along the way he found his true purpose by helping others achieve change for the better. He is very open with the reader about his experiences and defeats. The writing is so well done that I often have to sit back and remind myself that this man is a lawyer and politician and not an author. He astonishes me with his intellect and ability to communicate with commoners and high-brows alike. Throughout his recollections I am continually reminded that his sole focus in life is to help out the less fortunate and to create a bigger middle class.¤

4) Hardcover Book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Crown. I remember reading somewhere that conservative columnist George Will believed that this book could quite possibly be the best memoir penned by a politician. Though his assertion is debatable, Mr. Will´s alleged statement highlights the quality of this memoir. The writing and depth of introspection in Mr. Obama´s book is admirable. It is a journey about racial identity, spiritual awakening, social responsibilty and a search for the meaning of family. My wife and I are both Caucasian and our two, young sons are African-American. Over the decades, I´ve read a plethora of books/memoirs pertaining to race and, easily, this is one of the books I will recommend for my boys to read. A truly inspirational and gutsy book.¤

5) Hardcover Book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Crown. I have liked Barack Obama ever since he stopped to speak in the small Iowa town that I was living for the past few years. He has a true sincerity that can instantly be felt and he comes across as a very likable person. My Husband and I decided to read this book as well as THE AUDACITY OF HOPE before giving the man our vote and let me tell you I am glade we did. From reading the story of his life you understand how Obama has been shaped as a man and a politician. Every issue that the US is facing today is seen in the life of Barack and his family. The story was very elegant, thought provoking and all inclusive in it´s view of the world. Any American can read this book and see there self in Obama´s experiences. Based on this book I believe Obama will be a wonderful president of the likes never before seen in these modern days.¤

6) Hardcover Book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Crown. Nine years before the Senate campaign that made him one of the most influential and compelling voices in American politics, Barack Obama published this lyrical, unsentimental, and powerfully affecting memoir, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller when it was reissued in 2004. Dreams from My Father tells the story of Obama’s struggle to understand the forces that shaped him as the son of a black African father and white American mother—a struggle that takes him from the American heartland to the ancestral home of his great-aunt in the tiny African village of Alego.

Obama opens his story in New York, where he hears that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has died in a car accident. The news triggers a chain of memories as Barack retraces his family’s unusual history: the migration of his mother’s family from small-town Kansas to the Hawaiian islands; the love that develops between his mother and a promising young Kenyan student, a love nurtured by youthful innocence and the integrationist spirit of the early sixties; his father’s departure from Hawaii when Barack was two, as the realities of race and power reassert themselves; and Barack’s own awakening to the fears and doubts that exist not just between the larger black and white worlds but within himself.

Propelled by a desire to understand both the forces that shaped him and his father’s legacy, Barack moves to Chicago to work as a community organizer. There, against the backdrop of tumultuous political and racial conflict, he works to turn back the mounting despair of the inner city. His story becomes one with those of the people he works with as he learns about the value of community, the necessity of healing old wounds, and the possibility of faith in the midst of adversity.

Barack’s journey comes full circle in Kenya, where he finally meets the African side of his family and confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life. Traveling through a country racked by brutal poverty and tribal conflict, but whose people are sustained by a spirit of endurance and hope, Barack discovers that he is inescapably bound to brothers and sisters living an ocean away—and that by embracing their common struggles he can finally reconcile his divided inheritance.

A searching meditation on the meaning of identity in America, Dreams from My Father might be the most revealing portrait we have of a major American leader—a man who is playing, and will play, an increasingly prominent role in healing a fractious and fragmented nation.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 8-Nov-2008, 03073834159780307383419, 150-740-520-910-180-681-5SB-2WB-8

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