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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance Paperback – August 10, 2004

by Barack Obama (Author)

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS

In this iconic memoir of his early days, Barack Obama “guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race” (The Washington Post Book World).

“Quite extraordinary.”—Toni Morrison

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.

Praise for Dreams from My Father

“Beautifully crafted . . . moving and candid . . . This book belongs on the shelf beside works like James McBride’s The Color of Water and Gregory Howard Williams’s Life on the Color Line as a tale of living astride America’s racial categories.”—Scott Turow

“Provocative . . . Persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Obama’s writing is incisive yet forgiving. This is a book worth savoring.”—Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here

“One of the most powerful books of self-discovery I’ve ever read, all the more so for its illuminating insights into the problems not only of race, class, and color, but of culture and ethnicity. It is also beautifully written, skillfully layered, and paced like a good novel.”—Charlayne Hunter-Gault, author of In My Place

“Dreams from My Father is an exquisite, sensitive study of this wonderful young author’s journey into adulthood, his search for community and his place in it, his quest for an understanding of his roots, and his discovery of the poetry of human life. Perceptive and wise, this book will tell you something about yourself whether you are black or white.”—Marian Wright Edelman

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To be black was to be the beneficiary of a great inheritance, a special destiny, glorious burdens that only we were strong enough to bear.
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“Sometimes you can’t worry about hurt. Sometimes you worry only about getting where you have to go.”
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama was offered a book contract, but the intellectual journey he planned to recount became instead this poignant, probing memoir of an unusual life. Born in 1961 to a white American woman and a black Kenyan student, Obama was reared in Hawaii by his mother and her parents, his father having left for further study and a return home to Africa. So Obama's not-unhappy youth is nevertheless a lonely voyage to racial identity, tensions in school, struggling with black literature?with one month-long visit when he was 10 from his commanding father. After college, Obama became a community organizer in Chicago. He slowly found place and purpose among folks of similar hue but different memory, winning enough small victories to commit himself to the work?he's now a civil rights lawyer there. Before going to law school, he finally visited Kenya; with his father dead, he still confronted obligation and loss, and found wellsprings of love and attachment. Obama leaves some lingering questions?his mother is virtually absent?but still has written a resonant book. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Provocative . . . Persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Fluidly, calmly, insightfully, Obama guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Beautifully crafted . . . moving and candid . . . this book belongs on the shelf beside works like James McBride’s The Color of Water and Gregory Howard Williams’s Life on the Color Line as a tale of living astride America’s racial categories.”—Scott Turow

“Obama’s writing is incisive yet forgiving. This is a book worth savoring.”—Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here

From the Inside Flap

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.

About the Author

Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States, elected in November 2008 and holding office for two terms. He is the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and the New York Times bestselling author of Dreams from My Father, The Audacity of Hope, and A Promised Land. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Michelle. They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface to the 2004 Edition

Almost a decade has passed since this book was first published. As I mention in the original introduction, the opportunity to write the book came while I was in law school, the result of my election as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. In the wake of some modest publicity, I received an advance from a publisher and went to work with the belief that the story of my family, and my efforts to understand that story, might speak in some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience, as well as the fluid state of identity -- the leaps through time, the collision of cultures -- that mark our modern life.

Like most first-time authors, I was filled with hope and despair upon the book’s publication -- hope that the book might succeed beyond my youthful dreams, despair that I had failed to say anything worth saying. The reality fell somewhere in between. The reviews were mildly favorable. People actually showed up at the readings my publisher arranged. The sales were underwhelming. And, after a few months, I went on with the business of my life, certain that my career as an author would be short-lived, but glad to have survived the process with my dignity more or less intact.

I had little time for reflection over the next ten years. I ran a voter registration project in the 1992 election cycle, began a civil rights practice, and started teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago. My wife and I bought a house, were blessed with two gorgeous, healthy, and mischievous daughters, and struggled to pay the bills. When a seat in the state legislature opened up in 1996, some friends persuaded me to run for the office, and I won. I had been warned, before taking office, that state politics lacks the glamour of its Washington counterpart; one labors largely in obscurity, mostly on topics that mean a great deal to some but that the average man or woman on the street can safely ignore (the regulation of mobile homes, say, or the tax consequences of farm equipment depreciation). Nonetheless, I found the work satisfying, mostly because the scale of state politics allows for concrete results -- an expansion of health insurance for poor children, or a reform of laws that send innocent men to death row -- within a meaningful time frame. And too, because within the capitol building of a big, industrial state, one sees every day the face of a nation in constant conversation: inner-city mothers and corn and bean farmers, immigrant day laborers alongside suburban investment bankers -- all jostling to be heard, all ready to tell their stories.

A few months ago, I won the Democratic nomination for a seat as the U.S. senator from Illinois. It was a difficult race, in a crowded field of well-funded, skilled, and prominent candidates; without organizational backing or personal wealth, a black man with a funny name, I was considered a long shot. And so, when I won a majority of the votes in the Democratic primary, winning in white areas as well as black, in the suburbs as well as Chicago, the reaction that followed echoed the response to my election to the Law Review. Mainstream commentators expressed surprise and genuine hope that my victory signaled a broader change in our racial politics. Within the black community, there was a sense of pride regarding my accomplishment, a pride mingled with frustration that fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education and forty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, we should still be celebrating the possibility (and only the possibility, for I have a tough general election coming up) that I might be the sole African American -- and only the third since Reconstruction -- to serve in the Senate. My family, friends, and I were mildly bewildered by the attention, and constantly aware of the gulf between the hard sheen of media reports and the messy, mundane realities of life as it is truly lived.

Just as that spate of publicity prompted my publisher’s interest a decade ago, so has this fresh round of news clippings encouraged the book’s re-publication. For the first time in many years, I’ve pulled out a copy and read a few chapters to see how much my voice may have changed over time. I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity. I cannot honestly say, however, that the voice in this book is not mine -- that I would tell the story much differently today than I did ten years ago, even if certain passages have proven to be inconvenient politically, the grist for pundit commentary and opposition research.

What has changed, of course, dramatically, decisively, is the context in which the book might now be read. I began writing against a backdrop of Silicon Valley and a booming stock market; the collapse of the Berlin Wall; Mandela -- in slow, sturdy steps -- emerging from prison to lead a country; the signing of peace accords in Oslo. Domestically, our cultural debates -- around guns and abortion and rap lyrics -- seemed so fierce precisely because Bill Clinton’s Third Way, a scaled-back welfare state without grand ambition but without sharp edges, seemed to describe a broad, underlying consensus on bread-and-butter issues, a consensus to which even George W. Bush’s first campaign, with its “compassionate conservatism,” would have to give a nod. Internationally, writers announced the end of history, the ascendance of free markets and liberal democracy, the replacement of old hatreds and wars between nations with virtual communities and battles for market share.

And then, on September 11, 2001, the world fractured.

It’s beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow -- the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.

What I do know is that history returned that day with a vengeance; that, in fact, as Faulkner reminds us, the past is never dead and buried -- it isn’t even past. This collective history, this past, directly touches my own. Not merely because the bombs of Al Qaeda have marked, with an eerie precision, some of the landscapes of my life -- the buildings and roads and faces of Nairobi, Bali, Manhattan; not merely because, as a consequence of 9/11, my name is an irresistible target of mocking websites from overzealous Republican operatives. But also because the underlying struggle -- between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us -- is the struggle set forth, on a miniature scale, in this book.

I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago’s South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder -- alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware -- is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.

And so what was a more interior, intimate effort on my part, to understand this struggle and to find my place in it, has converged with a broader public debate, a debate in which I am professionally engaged, one that will shape our lives and the lives of our children for many years to come.

The policy implications of all this are a topic for another book. Let me end instead on a more personal note. Most of the characters in this book remain a part of my life, albeit in varying degrees -- a function of work, children, geography, and turns of fate.

The exception is my mother, whom we lost, with a brutal swiftness, to cancer a few months after this book was published.

She had spent the previous ten years doing what she loved. She traveled the world, working in the distant villages of Asia and Africa, helping women buy a sewing machine or a milk cow or an education that might give them a foothold in the world’s economy. She gathered friends from high and low, took long walks, stared at the moon, and foraged through the local markets of Delhi or Marrakesh for some trifle, a scarf or stone carving that would make her laugh or please the eye. She wrote reports, read novels, pestered her children, and dreamed of grandchildren.

We saw each other frequently, our bond unbroken. During the writing of this book, she would read the drafts, correcting stories that I had misunderstood, careful not to comment on my characterizations of her but quick to explain or defend the less flattering aspects of my father’s character. She managed her illness with grace and good humor, and she helped my sister and me push on with our lives, despite our dread, our denials, our sudden constrictions of the heart.

I think sometimes that had I known she would not survive her illness, I might have written a different book -- less a meditation on the absent parent, more a celebration of the one who was the single constant in my life. In my daughters I see her every day, her joy, her capacity for wonder. I won’t try to describe how deeply I mourn her passing still. I know that she was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and that what is best in me I owe to her.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1400082773
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 10, 2004
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781400082773
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1400082773
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1010L

Best Sellers Rank: #33,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #104 in Black & African American Biographies
- #113 in African American Demographic Studies (Books)
- #367 in Memoirs (Books)

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Barack Obama
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Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States, elected in November 2008 and holding office for two terms. He is the author of three New York Times bestselling books, Dreams from My Father, The Audacity of Hope, and A Promised Land, and is the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Michelle. They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
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Yuya Kiuchi
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Yuya Kiuchi is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University. His research areas include: African American Studies and History, American Studies and History, Popular Culture Studies, Urban History, Youth Culture, and Science Technology and Society Studies.
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Customers find the book compelling and well-paced, with eloquent writing that provides deep insight into President Obama's life and family background. Moreover, they appreciate its thought-provoking nature, with one customer describing it as a journey of self-discovery. However, some customers find the book excruciatingly boring and repetitive. The political content receives mixed reactions, with some customers noting it is not focused on politics.

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Readability Writing quality Thought provoking Insight into the man Story quality Pacing Political content Boredom

421 customers mention "Readability"405 positive16 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as a compelling and polished novel.

"...He is simply a great writer. This is an excellent book, on so many levels and is highly recommended...." Read more

"...I was amazed at how well written and interesting this book is by such a young man...." Read more

"...Not only is he a skilled and gifted writer, he’s also a storyteller with a mind for details and flair for engaging the reader...." Read more

"...What a fine book, a great writer and a remarkable President!" Read more

331 customers mention "Writing quality"287 positive44 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book, describing it as eloquent and honest, with one customer noting its poetic choice of words.

"...Barack Obama is a very careful and brilliant crafter of words, this book written in a very sensitive and compelling lyrical style, almost as if he..." Read more

"...It appears to me that he is trying to be truthful and candid about such important matters...." Read more

"...Not only is he a skilled and gifted writer, he’s also a storyteller with a mind for details and flair for engaging the reader...." Read more

"...in perpetual pursuit of his chosen life’s work – in the profoundly thorough (1995) book by the not yet President of the United States, Barack..." Read more

327 customers mention "Thought provoking"323 positive4 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking and inspiring, with one customer describing it as a glimpse into a man's soul, while others appreciate its journey of self-discovery.

"...man and an American White woman, is by any true definition, genuinely African-American, a unique Black male in America who does not have slavery as..." Read more

"...He is so diversified in various cultures, and has a deep understanding of human nature with regard to expressing themselves in these cultures...." Read more

"...It’s a book about race, yes, but it’s also about family, inheritance, culture, background and how those factors (and more) combine to make us who we..." Read more

"...There are lots of good words of wisdom within the book to ponder, still his personal scenarios might not be so familiar or quite comfy for everybody..." Read more

107 customers mention "Insight into the man"107 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's insight into President Obama's life and personality, and how it familiarizes readers with his personal history and family background.

"...version of it--has given me a perspective of the man, his dreams and his politics, as no other autobiographical book by any other author has ever..." Read more

"...It is an understandable whole, a rich personal history...." Read more

"...4 stars because it's not a literary masterpiece but a great insight to our 44th President, written well before his presidency." Read more

"...What a fine book, a great writer and a remarkable President!" Read more

80 customers mention "Story quality"77 positive3 negative

Customers find the book's story compelling and moving, describing it as a beautiful account of a young person's life, with one customer noting it's more exciting than fiction.

"...It’s a book about race, yes, but it’s also about family, inheritance, culture, background and how those factors (and more) combine to make us who we..." Read more

"...cinematic clarity, with such feeling and conciseness that it borders on the poetic!..." Read more

"...He shows love and concern for all his African family (an incredible collection of half-brothers and sisters with mutiple mothers), but Auma has a..." Read more

"...They were real people - they had faults but were good people and great grandparents...." Read more

29 customers mention "Pacing"22 positive7 negative

Customers find the pacing of the book well-paced and moving, with one customer noting it flows like a novel.

"...What makes the interaction even more compelling is the fact that Obama innocently lays out an image of what he hopes to see occur within his..." Read more

"...I am no literary giant but I found it engaging, well paced and easy to read. My only regret is that I did not buy a hardcover copy...." Read more

"This book is honest, and it moves with fluid and coherent writing...." Read more

"...first trip to Africa to meet his family, to be overlong and it dragged a bit for me, even though it's clear that it was a profound experience for him..." Read more

26 customers mention "Political content"17 positive9 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the political content of the book, with some appreciating that it is not focused on politics, while others find it filled with lies.

"...be an extremely open and honest literary memoir that fused thoughs, ideologies, philosophy and the absurdities of life in a format that flowed as a..." Read more

"...There is zero truth to that statement. There is no documentation to back up that statement...." Read more

"...He is unflinchingly direct and fair on a topic that is, at best, touchy...." Read more

"...A great, must-read book for all faiths, races, and political affiliations." Read more

28 customers mention "Boredom"4 positive24 negative

Customers find the book excruciatingly boring and lose interest about halfway through, with several noting that the stories seem contrived.

"...I think Dreams from My Father is dry, boring, insufferably long-winded, not particularly elegant or uplifting, but perfectly harmless...." Read more

"...Some of the stories seem rather contrived, like Tut being so scared by the black man at the bus stop that Gramps had to drive her to work or the..." Read more

"...Much of the story perhaps left untold...." Read more

"...I was uncomfortable reading this and ultimately found the book profoundly depressing (hence 3 stars instead of 4). I find it hard to..." Read more

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The Careful Observer
A Brilliant, Self-Written Account Of An Extraordinary Life.
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A very normal, White American couple, by all accounts, typical midwesterners, start out in Kansas. The couple has an only child in a daughter, who, it seems from the start was rather unconventional. Eventually, the couple migrates to Hawaii. The daughter goes off to college and is entranced by a fellow African student, a brilliant man by the name of Barack Obama. The two fall in love at a time when interracial marriages were still outlawed in at least one American state. What is even more remarkable is that the parents of the young lady accept their new son-in-law, wishing the best for him and his new wife. The couple has a son and name him after the father. Though the son is technically “bi-racial,” the “one drop rule” of American society does not recognize that categorization, since any person with at least “one drop” of African blood in one's veins is ruled as Black. Interestingly, this child, the product of an African man and an American White woman, is by any true definition, genuinely African-American, a unique Black male in America who does not have slavery as a legacy in his genealogical heritage. When his father abandons his family, the young man struggles for his identity, combing great literature in search of who he is. He finds some comfort in the respect and intelligence of Malcolm X, but shies away from Malcolm's critique of his White ancestry. He goes to live with his mother in Indonesia, just one of the many symbolic cosmopolitan feathers that he will eventually have in his cap. His father haunts his dreams, and reappears for a brief period when he is age 10. He does ok, after a brief teenage experimentation with drugs, landing at a college in Los Angeles. Before he knows it, he can say that he has lived in the 3 largest cities in America, after transferring to a school in New York, and then moving onto Chicago. Everywhere he goes, he must wrestle with his unique racial ancestry, but somehow through it all, he reconciles his past to become an intelligent and strong personality, brimming with confidence. Unlike most memoirs of those who have been president, this is no “as told to” written account. Barack Obama is a very careful and brilliant crafter of words, this book written in a very sensitive and compelling lyrical style, almost as if he is telling it to you-and to you alone-across from him at a living room table. He is simply a great writer. This is an excellent book, on so many levels and is highly recommended. This book can be complemented by another, “Reality's Pen: Reflections On Family, History & Culture,” by Thomas D. Rush. Rush's book can be found right here on Amazon. In Rush's work, we get to see the “average Joe's” fascinating 1989 account of two very long conversations with what will eventually become the first African-American President in American History. It's good to get this account because it occurs long before Obama is famous, between two people just going about the daily business of their lives. What makes the interaction even more compelling is the fact that Obama innocently lays out an image of what he hopes to see occur within his romantic life, a romantic life prior to the time of his introduction to Michelle. It is oh so fascinating, and can be found in the piece on page 95 of Rush's work called, “You Never Know Who God Wants You To Meet.”

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Who Is He? This book Answered the Question!
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2008
Verified Purchase
When I first heard the name Obama, I thought where did he come from, and I did not take him too seriously at first. I do not know if it is proper to mention politics here, but I am a staunch Democrat. Now, I have friends and relatives who are just as stauch Republicans, and that does not matter the least bit to me. I am just so thankful that we live in a country where we can vote according to the dictates of our own hearts and minds. Leaving that thought, I voted for Hillary in the primary and believed she would get the nomination. Well, the rest is history. After a few weeks, I soon realized with the coverage on the medica that Obama was not going away any time soon. Therefore, I went to Amazon to see what I could get to learn who he is. I bought this book and the Audacity of Hope from Amazon.
I was amazed at how well written and interesting this book is by such a young man. He is so diversified in various cultures, and has a deep understanding of human nature with regard to expressing themselves in these cultures.
He speaks of the difficulty of his youth with living in a white family while his grandfather taking him to the black bars for entertainment. He lives in Indonesia, and one gets an incite to the Asian customs which are quite different from us as Americans.
He later goes to Kenya and gives us detail into the people and customs of that land. The struggles that face his people whom he has not known. He only saw his father once when he was ten years old.
But the way he meets his siter Auma after they are both grown, and yet he connects with her is amazing.
It appears to me that he is trying to be truthful and candid about such important matters. He gives us an insight into the deep feelings of people who are affected by proverty and race. It would be unkind of me to say I understand those feelings because as a white American, I have not experienced them. However, I have great empathy for those who must endure this life. Yet, I am seeing that today we have many white people who are living in the area of poverty and uneducated. I am now old and see a trend that I do not like.
Obama chose willingly to serve in the Chicago area where he could see firsthand the poverty and see if he could make change. He did. He was persevering, tolerant, patient, a man on a mission to accomplish, and he did with much success.

Yes, this book answered my question as to who is he. I will be voting for him, and after reading this book, it is with great confidence I do so. I have not begun the Audacity of Hope yet but am looking forward to it if it is written with the same honesty and thought.
I highly recommend.

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Carlos Alduncin
Obama is the man
Reviewed in Mexico on June 26, 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Excelente libro, muy recomendable

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Ferial Haque
Dreams from My Father: A true Story of Success by Inheriting the Genes
Reviewed in Canada on March 24, 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Barak Obama having grown up with biracial heritage stresses his father's influence while growing up in America. His wisdom and love for his father's background show his love for Michelle and how they set their dreams together... While reading the book I was touched by his father's presence as Afro-American. Having a glimpse of my teenage dreams in a country in British India, and seeing gradual changes of the two divided countries - Pakistan and India. The geographical setting of West and East Pakistan being separated by vast land of India. My dreams to join the Scientific Community was greatly influenced by my late father who was a physicist and died at age 27 years. Being brought up by my mother an academician was an inspiration on my journey to achieve my goals in life. A Book I enjoyed reading and gaining confidence in my ability to continue with my journey...

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I thoroughly recommend this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 8, 2025
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Great book, a true insight into the man

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Claudia
interessante
Reviewed in Italy on May 7, 2023
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buona lettura, che esplora la vita d'infanzia e adolescenza dell'ex presidente. Ricco di dettagli e anneddoti sul rapport conflittuale con il padre. Una lettura interessante.

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Intuition
Großartiges Buch, berührend und hochinteressant
Reviewed in Germany on October 9, 2009
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Es handelt sich um die Autobiographie Obamas, seiner Lebensgeschichte bis zum 31. LJ. Man erfährt vieles über seinen familiären und gesellschaftlichen Hintergrund und darf teilnehmen an seiner persönlichen Entwicklung. Das Buch ist literarisch großartig. Es ist berührend, weil Obama sehr persönlich auch über seine Ängste und Schwierigkeiten schreibt. Beim Lesen wundert man sich immer wieder, wie es wohl dazu gekommen ist, dass die Amerikaner, die polarisieren und Feindbilder aufbauen, wo sie nur können, diesen Mann zu ihrem Präsidenten gewählt haben. Leider hat der reale Obama nicht gehalten, was die Biographie einen hoffen lässt: Die Rüstungsausgaben der USA sind immer noch horrend und die großen Unternehmen dürfen auch weiterhin alle Grenzen überschreiten.
Wofür er den Friedensnobelpreis bekommen hat, kann man sich nach ein paar Jahren Amtszeit fragen. Trotzdem ist das Buch lesenswert.

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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance Paperback – August 10, 2004

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant, Self-Written Account Of An Extraordinary Life.

5.0 out of 5 stars Who Is He? This book Answered the Question!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Obama is the man

5.0 out of 5 stars Dreams from My Father: A true Story of Success by Inheriting the Genes

5.0 out of 5 stars I thoroughly recommend this book

5.0 out of 5 stars interessante

5.0 out of 5 stars Großartiges Buch, berührend und hochinteressant

A Brilliant, Self-Written Account Of An Extraordinary Life.

Who Is He? This book Answered the Question!

Obama is the man

Dreams from My Father: A true Story of Success by Inheriting the Genes

I thoroughly recommend this book

interessante

Großartiges Buch, berührend und hochinteressant