Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama Kindle Edition

"Rising Son: The Making of Barack Obama" by David Garrow, (May 2017).

WOW! The first thing that impresses a reader is that this 1,461-paage tome feels like it weighs like a 10-lb. sack of flour (okay, really only 7.2 lbs.).  About 78% of the book is analysis (1,078 pages), with the balance being: notes, bibliography, and index.

The author deeply delves into studying the upbringing of U.S. Pres. Barack Hussein Obama from his childhood years up to his announcement that he would run for the office of the U.S. President in mid-January 2007.  The author doesn't really analyze the 2008 presidential campaign itself in detail, but notes several crises that could have severely hurt (and possibly derail) Obama's campaign. In the Epilogue, the author does briefly review both presidential campaigns, and notes some highlighted events in Obama's presidency (hey, only about 35 pages of reviewing his eight years in the Oval Office).

Being a libertarian, I was surprised to read: "Barack claimed to Time [magazine] that as an undergraduate, 'I was reading Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek,' famous conservative economists,", but doesn't relate how those two influenced him outside of apparently stimulating his survival spirit: "... Barack told the Tribune [newspaper] that 'I had to scratch and claw my way to the point I am now....'" (p. 1049).

The author reviews how the controversial remarks of Rev. Jeremiah Wright impacted Obama's campaign, as well as questionable sexcapade controversies during his college years.  The author's legal credentials will have to serve as how one views the "truthiness" of the author's contentions and discoveries.   I wasn't involved in Obama's campaigns, and like most will need to await the feedback of Obama's staff in (partially) validating some aspects of the author's portrait of our 44th president.

Hey, there's almost 1,100 pages of critical analysis, so there is indeed extensive commentary on Barack's teenage and collegiate life.

Undoubtedly, anti-Obama conservatives will be pleased with the many revelations in this book, but they undoubtedly will bemoan "if only this stuff had been revealed earlier!"  Obama fans will pan some of the author's contentions, but most of us will be impressed with the extensive research that the author has undertaken in exposing so much of the unknown Barack (at least to those of us who didn't follow his Chicago, liberal community-organization activities, state senate votes, and his brief U.S. Senate career -- topics which the author discusses in great detail). [Brent Staples has a fine review in The New York Times. Also, do see a conservative's view by Lloyd Billingsley in his review "The Incredible Bulk: David Garrow’s massive monument to the Obama myth" in the May 22, 2017 online "FrontPage Mag"..]

I'm about 600 pages into this. As a fellow biographer, I can say with some authority that his narrative is clunky, difficult to follow. It reads like everything you wanted to know about Obama but were afraid to ask. He has some good research, especially about Obama's pre-Michelle love life, but he falls down trying to relay it. The book could easily have been cut in half.

It is very hard to read this book because it is so heavy. Although I like getting into the information in the book. I wonder why David Garrow didn't write in in volumes instead of one big book.

A 25-year old black college freshman impregnates a 17 year old white girl two months after meeting her in Russian 101 at the University of Hawaii. The baby was almost donated to the Salvation Army. Destiny had bigger plans.

Finally a book on truth and not written as a fluff piece towards a stepping stone for a presidential bid. Politics is a ugly business and power hungry people are capable of anything, or becoming anyone to reach their objective. It's time we all realize that it's not a game show... it's a business called power.

Ponderous!!! The author seems to have included EVERY DETAIL in his research, and stays horribly fixed to a day to day timeline of O's life. He displays absolutely no editorial judgment. This book should be considered only by others who wish to do their own research into O's life prior to the presidency. It is very hard work to consume this text.........

I am tired of people because of their identity politic spoil the review process. The person that gave it one star couldn't possibly read the book it just came out.

I was looking forward to this book and was undeterred by it's enormous length since i love a great, long book. But, this book as a previous reviewer put it, is needlessly tedious. I struggled to get through the first couple of hundred pages. It is the product of tireless naval gazing by a tenured academic. It read like a textbook. Every time I would pass and see the book sitting on my table waiting to be read I would groan. You shouldn't feel like that when reading for pleasure. I returned it for the next victim to endure.