Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
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Book Summary Author: Barack Obama Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2004-08-10 ISBN: 1400082773 Number of pages: 480 Publisher: Three Rivers Press |
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| Used | jpsbooksandbeyond | Used, verygood Publisher: Three Rivers Press Date of Publication: 2004 Binding: Soft Cover Edition: Revised Edition Condition: Very Good Description: Measures: 5-1/4" x 8" 1400082773 442 Pages Clean, tight copy with no writing or markings. The spine is not creased. Colorfully illustrated cover. Not an Ex-Library Book. Includes preface, introduction, 19 chapters, epilogue, and a photograph and a brief biography of the author. Book is starting to curl up around the edges. Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $8.00 | |
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Book Reviews of the Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Customer Review: A remarkable journey of self-discovery
Summary: 5 Stars
The next US Senator from the state of Illinois wrote this book nearly a decade ago, before his rapid rise to political power. Before anyone outside of Chicago's South Side knew who he was, Obama wrote a remarkably personal account of his childhood and life up to that time.
The subtitle of the book is "A Story of Race and Inheritance," but it seems that the book is really about identity. Obama writes freely on "the puzzle of being a black man," which is compounded for him by the fact that his mother is American-born and his father is from Kenya. He lives in Hawaii, then abroad in Indonesia for part of his childhood, reinforcing the fact that he is from two worlds but belongs to neither. He meets his father only once, around age ten. The author then wends through life up to his late twenties not knowing who his father really was. The point at which he finds out about his father's weaknesses is one of the more explosive moments of the book. Obama shares even this darkest moment with us.
Obama writes frankly about his idle years as a teen, his past fondness for pot and for liquor, but these preoccupations fade for him as he finds purpose to his life. He gives up a successful job in New York to work on the streets as an organizer, where he helps mainly poor blacks fight for fair housing and educational opportunities. But in spite of his passion for this work, his life is still incomplete. He writes, "my identity might begin with the fact of my race but it didn't, couldn't, end there."
The pinnacle of Obama's young life was finally visiting his African family in Kenya, and although his father has already passed away, he has left behind a large group of people - - Obama's people - - who claim him as one of their own. It is during this trip where he receives his inheritance, which is not his father's practically nonexistent and disputed estate, but the wealth of information about generations past. Shortly after his first African trip, where this account ends, Obama begins Harvard Law School.
If it seems incredibly rare to find this level of candor in a political biography or autobiography, it's because the book is an autobiography about a man before he gained political ambition. This is what makes this book stand out so boldly from the genre: That a man could share some of the deepest parts of himself years before he sought high office is rare indeed. The 2004 edition of this book contains a new preface by the author.