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

by Barack Obama (Author)

4.7 10,630 ratings

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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

Print length

464 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Crown
Publication date

August 10, 2004
Dimensions

5.17 x 0.96 x 7.94 inches
ISBN-10

9781400082773
ISBN-13

978-1400082773
Lexile measure

1010L
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Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

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.
Highlighted by 937 Kindle readers
“Sometimes you can’t worry about hurt. Sometimes you worry only about getting where you have to go.”
Highlighted by 852 Kindle readers
She had taught me to disdain the blend of ignorance and arrogance that too often characterized Americans abroad.
Highlighted by 827 Kindle readers

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.

From the Back Cover

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 (August 10, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781400082773
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1400082773
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1010L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.17 x 0.96 x 7.94 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #22,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #107 in US Presidents
- #113 in Black & African American Biographies
- #747 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 say

Customers find the book engaging, quick, and pleasant. They appreciate the interesting insight, introspective, and earnest account of the President's search for meaning and identity. Readers praise the writing quality as well-written, eloquent, and skillful. They describe the honesty as deep, real, and credible. Additionally, they find the sentimentality poignant, heartfelt, and personal.

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Readability Insight Writing quality Honesty Sentimentality Story quality Beauty Boredom

325 customers mention "Readability"309 positive16 negative

Customers find the book engaging, quick, and pleasant. They say it's a must-read for all faiths, races, and political affiliations. Readers also mention the story is not complicated or hard to read.

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

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

"...This book is a phenomenal and authentic read! I appreciate President Obama for sharing parts of his history that only he could! Salute!..." Read more

297 customers mention "Insight"297 positive0 negative

Customers find the book interesting, introspective, and earnest. They say the author has a deep understanding of human nature. Readers also mention the book contains good words of wisdom to ponder.

"...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.”" Read more

"...So if I had to sum it up I would use words like: inspiring, informative, honest, a journey -that even caused me to do a little soul searching myself..." 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

"...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

213 customers mention "Writing quality"197 positive16 negative

Customers find the writing quality of the book pretty well-written, eloquent, and beautiful. They also say the author is skilled and gifted. Readers mention the book is engaging, well-paced, and easy to read.

"...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..." 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

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

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

68 customers mention "Honesty"56 positive12 negative

Customers find the book deeply honest, beautiful, and credible. They say it shows a man determined and authentic. Readers also mention the book gives them a personality of a president they don't normally get.

"...if I had to sum it up I would use words like: inspiring, informative, honest, a journey -that even caused me to do a little soul searching myself..." Read more

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

"...early events as well as what he was told then and later is clear and credible, if confused as it would be...." Read more

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

57 customers mention "Sentimentality"57 positive0 negative

Customers find the history poignant, heartfelt, and personal. They appreciate the honest insights into the memories of a man who aspires to great power. Readers describe the book as thoughtful and moving. They mention it's a memoir of a truly unique upbringing and personal growth.

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

"...This book was written with such depth, intelligence, and compassion that you will find yourself saying "This man should be President" and then you..." Read more

"...Obama spoke at the 2004 Democratic convention, by his eloquence, compassion, intelligence and humanity, not to mention his poise and magnetic..." Read more

"...It is a painfully honest expression of a young bi-racial male trying to find his place in the world, how he fit into the society into which he had..." Read more

51 customers mention "Story quality"39 positive12 negative

Customers find the story compelling, fascinating, and unusual. They say it has an even-paced narrative that sounds genuine. Readers also mention the timeline is captivating and gripping at times. Overall, they describe the book as informative, honest, and riveting.

"...to sum it up I would use words like: inspiring, informative, honest, a journey -that even caused me to do a little soul searching myself..." Read more

"...but he never completely tips his hand: he remains somewhat aloof, mysterious and intriguing...." Read more

"...The story is told in a simple chronological mode, quite gripping at times...." 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

29 customers mention "Beauty"29 positive0 negative

Customers find the book lovely, effortlessly beautiful in its prose and insight. They say it's beautifully crafted, original, and authentic. Readers also mention the author paints fascinating portraits of people who have influenced him.

"...3. To love is a beautiful, hard, confusing, and magical thing. To be loved by someone that understands you is everything.4...." Read more

"...Obama's writing is so exquisite, so beautifully crafted that I could only read small sections at a time, then I had to take a few minutes to savor..." Read more

"It's clear how from Obama's life how he became such a eloquent, elegant, intellectual, disciplined, balanced and compassionate man...." Read more

"...One thing that was constant is the fact that Barack Obama is a beautiful writter. His honesty also shines through...." Read more

29 customers mention "Boredom"7 positive22 negative

Customers find the book boring, saying it has nothing to say and is profoundly depressing. They also mention the author is hardly insightful.

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

"...As a "read", this book has nothing to say....... I believe this writer is so intent on using "big words" that he fails to convey a useful message..." Read more

"...So much living, so much understanding, and he is only 50...." 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

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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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R.N.Vaughn-Nichol

WORTH THE READ!

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2009

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I finally finished Dreams From My Father last night. And while I confess I rarely leave reviews. I realized this morning how important these reviews are at helping me make decisions to buy a book or not... With that being said, I must whole-heartedly recommend this book. If you are at all interested in the nature and character of our 44th President - it is a must read!

I AM AN OBAMA FAN! I fully acknowledge that, but I think this book will even help the skeptics among us. By all indications we have done well America. We have elected a man, not a god certainly, but someone who is willing to be transparent, with real substance and a passion for people based on a very diverse background. All the way through the book that's what I kept thinking. He was the right choice for president.

Chicago seemed a real microcosm of the problems the President is now facing in the US. Somehow you gain a since that it was his practice run. The other thing I like about the book is that it takes a lot of the media sound bites we've heard over the past couple of years and puts them in perspective of the life of a real person, struggling to come to terms with identity and self - as we all are - if we are honest about it.

The surprising thing for me was that President Obama is also a gifted writer at that. I could hardly put the book down. 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. Because for me it's definitely a keeper, a book I want to add to my permanent library. So if I had to sum it up I would use words like: inspiring, informative, honest, a journey -that even caused me to do a little soul searching myself...

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Richard Stampfle

"Damn..."

Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2009

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Even reading this story of race and inheritance after Barack Obama took the oath of office as President of the United States of America, it seemed to me totally unlikely that the wonderful young man who is the subject of the story could ever have risen to the highest office in America. On the other hand, when you experience the thoughtfulness of his writing, you understand his ability to overcome the challenges of race in America, his struggle to grasp his father's life and the meaning of family, his understanding of other cultures and you are very hopeful for him.

As I read this book, being of the same generation as Barack's father, I found my self rooting for this young guy as if he were my own son and worrying when he did things that led him off in the wrong direction: his idle years as a teen, his youthful fondness for pot and liquor, his smoking. But luckily these preoccupations faded for him as he found purpose in his life and my fatherly concern was not necessary. But my fatherly love for him remained -- I wanted him to succeed.

In the chapter called "Origins" he writes about an attitude he learned on the subject of `respect'. He writes: "And something else, too, something nobody talked about: a way of being together when the game was tight and the sweat broke and the best players stopped worrying about their points and the worst players got swept up in the moment and the score only mattered because that's how you sustained the trance. In the middle of which you might make a move or a pass that surprised even you, so that even the guy guarding you had to smile, as if to say, "Damn..."

So, as I followed the growth of this boy into the man who became President last month and took on unprecedented challenges to our country: Two wars, shattered economy, and a battered reputation; he made those moves that surprised everyone and I could only smile and say, "Damn...."

What a fine book, a great writer and a remarkable President!

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Saurabh Kulshrestha

Good read

Reviewed in India on August 19, 2024

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Well written with specifics and details , thoughtful and engaging.. you get to see a personality taking shape based on the experiences of life and the self drive

Cliente.

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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Carlos Alduncin

Obama is the man

Reviewed in Mexico on June 26, 2019

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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

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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...

JORGE A TORREAO DAU

Building an identity

Reviewed in Brazil on March 6, 2019

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It is easy to appear like someone with a ready made identity. But to search one by seeking ones origin and inheritance, and go beyond ready made categories to embrace change is not. That is what one can see on this inspiring book.

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