Paola espinosa biography of barack obama
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To wrap up this six-year journey through the best biographies of the presidents I read three books on Barack H. Obama:
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* “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” (2010) by David Remnick
Remnick’s “The Bridge” was the perfect place for me to start: it covers Obama’s life up through his presidential inauguration and although the narrative can be dense and dry, it is not tediously detailed and provides an excellent review of most aspects of his first forty-seven years.
But this book is not as engrossing as are the very best biographies and it underplays the drama embedded in Obama’s unlikely and remarkable political ascent.
They worked to bring new voters—many of them young or Black, both demographics they believed favored Obama—to become involved in the election.
A crushing financial crisis in the months leading up to the election shifted the nation’s focus to economic issues, and both Obama and McCain worked to show they had the best plan for economic improvement.
My fingers are crossed that Maraniss writes a follow-up volume focusing on Obama’s political ascent and presidency. It put the relatively unknown, young senator in the national spotlight.
In November 2004, Illinois delivered 70 percent of its votes to Obama (versus Keyes’ 27 percent), sending him to Washington as only the third African American elected to the U.S.
Senate since Reconstruction.
During his tenure, Obama notably focused on issues of nuclear non-proliferation and the health threat posed by avian flu. Despite tight Republican control during his years in the state senate, Obama was able to build support among both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics and health care reform.
When the Republicans won the Senate in 2014, Obama refocused on actions that he could take unilaterally, invoking his executive authority as president. Obama was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. with the same Bible President Abraham Lincoln used at his first inaugural.
One of Obama’s first acts in office was the signing of The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which he signed just nine days into office, giving legal protection in the fight for equal pay for women.
He won a scholarship to study economics at the University of Hawaii, where he met and married Ann Dunham, a white woman from Wichita, Kansas, whose father had worked on oil rigs during the Great Depression and fought with the U.S. Army in World War II before moving his family to Hawaii in 1959. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.
Obama’s parents later separated, and Barack Sr.
went back to Kenya. I promise you, we as a people will get there.”
Barack Obama was sworn in as the first Black president of the United States on January 20, 2009. And in stark contrast to the first 1000+ pages of the book, Obama’s presidency is covered in less than thirty pages. Taking the stage in Chicago’s Grant Park with his wife, Michelle, and their two young daughters, Malia Obama and Sasha Obama, he acknowledged the historic nature of his win while reflecting on the serious challenges that lay ahead.
After the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in 2010, the president spent significant time and political effort negotiating, for the most part unsuccessfully, with congressional Republicans about taxes, budgets, and the deficit.
Barack Obama: Life in Brief
Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States—becoming the first African American to serve in that office—on January 20, 2009.
The son of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father, Obama grew up in Hawaii. But Remnick’s reporting eye and his tenacity in seeking out interviews of everyone who ever knew Obama are remarkable.
For the next several years, he worked with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s largely Black South Side. (He has indicated an interest in doing so, but only after Obama’s book is published and once his library archives are accessible) — 4¼ stars (Full review here)
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Best Biography of Barack Obama: ***Too early to call***
Follow-up:
– “Obama: The Call of History” (2017) by Peter Baker
– “Obama: From Promise to Power” (2007) by David Mendell
.
In 2004, he was elected by a record majority to the US Senate from Illinois and, in February 2007, announced his candidacy for president.Biden had been a U.S. senator from Delaware since 1972, was a one-time Democratic candidate for president and served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But as a presidential biography it proves a mind-numbing exercise in patience and pointless perseverance – 2 stars (Full review here)
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* “Barack Obama: The Story” (2012) by David Maraniss
I had a great experience with Maraniss’s biography of the young Bill Clinton and this book on Barack Obama’s early life did not disappoint.
He married Michelle Obama at the Trinity United Church of Christ on October 3, 1992.
Obama went on to teach at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2003.
Senator Barack Obama
In 1996, Obama officially launched his own political career, winning election to the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat from the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park.
Their two daughters, Malia Ann and Natasha (Sasha), were born in 1998 and 2001, respectively.