Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Book Review: Barack Obama's Memoir
Summary: 5 Stars
This memoir reveals a wise man who grew up out of an unusual home life and an untraditional family.
Book Review: Great Read - Author Pours Out Innermost Working of His Mind
Summary: 5 Stars
Well-balanced & modest come to mind when thinking of this book in it's entirety vis-a-vis the author's achievements at the time.Book Review: What about Mom?
Summary: 3 Stars
Barack Obama is obviously an articulate, intelligent man; but his "story of race and inheritance" may leave readers scratching their heads at times. The story of his life, the son of a Kenyan man and a white woman who divorced when he was a young child, is atypical. His father, an extremely book smart man, polygamist, big talker and eventually sometimes embarrassment to the family who was known as the Old Man to his many children, seems an unlikely source of the "dreams" of which the title speaks. The author met his father but once, when he was ten years old. Dr. Barack Obama was already married (p 422) when he met his namesake's mother while studying in the States. He returned to Africa alone, married again (and again) and had more children. His mother then married (and later divorced) an Indonesian man and they moved to Djakarta, where he spent his early years until moving in with his maternal grandparents in Hawaii. He ended up in Chicago, where he signed on to help organize African-Americans to work together to gain funding for projects to improve the quality of their lives and those of their children. Three years and much success (after a bumpy start) later, he headed off to graduate school, but not before finally attending services at a large, popular, local church. Readers may wonder if, during the several page section rounding out Part 2 (Chicago), he may have experienced some sort of spiritual awakening: the signs pointing ambiguously to "maybe," making one wonder why the event was included at all. The latter thirty percent of the book covers his first trip to Kenya (his father having already passed away) and his interactions with a convoluted web of relatives: aunts, uncles, cousins, and half and step siblings: the details of which, although unusual, will probably be of no more interest to readers than the tales of their own genealogical connections (a family tree would have been clarifying). Although Dreams From My Father is a good story about a smart, well-intentioned, accomplished man (with complicated family connections) who has lived an interesting life, its hard not to question his focus on his (absent) father in lieu of his mother.
Book Review: A Human Memoir Full of Truth
Summary: 5 Stars
Barrack Obama, is a wonderful writer, and this memoir is full of passion, truisms, and wisdom. For a 33 year old man to be able to have this insight on his childhood, adolescence, his coming into manhood, and his beginnings in politicals...he is in search of his father's past, he never forgets who he is, and outsider in a black and white world...Barrack is intelligent, thought provoking, and definitely a memoir that needs to be read by all to understand this very young Senator, his eloquence and his super stardom. It is a marvelously written memoir...Book Review: A Unique Look At Racial Identity
Summary: 5 Stars
Obama wrote this memoir before he went into law school and politics. At this point he bounced around from Hawaii to Indonesia to Los Angeles to New York to Chicago to Kenya. His interpretation of racial identity matures and demystifies as he travels and meets his relatives. This memoir is a great start for someone who wants to understand the roots of his politics and why they apply to so many people. An awesome read.