“…this is a revelatory book, which anyone interested in modern politics will want to read, and which will certainly shape our understanding of President Obama’s strengths, weaknesses and inscrutabilities. Every few pages Maraniss offers a factual nugget that changes or enlarges the prevailing lore….a richer view of the man we have become familiar with, without really knowing…. after this book we know one public figure much better.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Maraniss delivers….The power of Maraniss’s reporting becomes apparent in his treatment of the future President’s ‘dark years’…. Maraniss captures Obama’s search for purpose and the kindling of his ambition with an intimacy unlike that of other biographers—including Obama….[The book] offers the rawest account of his early life and a deeper understanding of his origins. Three and a half years and countless publications after Obama’s Inauguration, that is a remarkable feat.” —TIME

“Book is full of riveting stories, shrewd observations, and fascinating details. It’s like reading Michener….There is something quite searching and wonderful about seeing much of history as a chaos of chance.” — The New Yorker

“‘Barack Obama’ is a biography at its best. A prodigiously researched and exquisitely written multigenerational account….Almost without exception, Maraniss' assessments are judicious and persuasive….With subtlety and sophistication, Maraniss captures and conveys Obama's sensibilities and sensitivities.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“This biography possesses a richness and scope that cannot be captured in short-form journalism, magazine excerpts or a mere review. Maraniss has written a global, multigenerational saga that culminates in the emergence of a young man who is knowable, recognizable and real....Maraniss approaches the task with deep research, crisp, clean writing and judicious reflection that never seems intrusive. He not only succeeds, he makes it look easy.” —The Washington Post

"It's not often that a book has the potential to change the course of political history, which is why this one is probably the most eagerly anticipated American book of the year." —NPR.org

“By showing us the young Barack Obama—breathing, moving across the world, traversing the bloodknot of race in America alongside family, relationships, and the hurly-burly of Chicago—David Maraniss has shown us a human soul growing almost inch by inch. This is a work of literature, and it possesses the kind of brilliance and verve that would have made James Baldwin himself proud.”
—Wil Haygood, author of King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

“The books of David Maraniss are like majestic rivers rolling to the sea, gathering in all the other confluences as they go, gaining their incredible subsurface force. But here, in a multigenerational portrait of a young man owning the most improbable history, Maraniss has outdone himself. Finally, you can understand the man who became the 44th president.”
—Paul Hendrickson, author of Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved, and Lost, 1934-1961


“Maraniss offers not just a beautifully written book, but a real insight into what goes on behind the veil.”
—The Hill

“This is a highly textured and intimate look at the family stories behind Obama …A thoroughly fascinating, multigenerational biography that explores broader social and political changes even as it highlights the elements that shaped one man’s life.”—Booklist, starred review

David Maraniss, an associate editor at The Washington Post, is the author of critically acclaimed bestselling books on Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi, Vietnam and the sixties, Roberto Clemente, and the 1960 Rome Olympics. He won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Clinton, was part of a Post team that won the 2007 Pulitzer for coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and has been a Pulitzer finalist three other times, including in the nonfiction history category for They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin.