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: 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.
Book Review: Okay...
Summary: 2 Stars
I swallowed this book for the first ten pages. It was intriguing, conversational, and I was excited to read about the man I voted for. I was into this book all the way up until he went to Africa. After he went to visit his family, there were just too many names and characters involved and I went from being confused to not caring at all. The author would tell me things like someone sipped a cup of tea. In a fiction story, that matters--in a nonfiction story, it's irrelevant. Many of the things Barack encountered while in Africa were unnecessary to tell me in this book although they may have been imperative to him. Every once in awhile, I'd hear a good story from his grandmother, I liked to hear about his father and grandfather growing up, but all the cousins/midwives/brothers/sisters etc. were a bore to read about.Book Review: Inspiring Life Story...Somewhat Less Than Complete
Summary: 4 Stars
U.S. Senate hopeful Barack Obama has an inspiring story to share, and yet he doesn't simply rest on his laurels in this critical evaluation of his life and in his continuing search for himself as a black American. He wrote "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" almost ten years ago, but his stock has obviously surged since his star-making speech at the Democratic National Convention last month, perhaps to the chagrin of Hillary Clinton...unless she is dreaming of a Clinton-Obama ticket in 2008! Growing up mulatto in Hawaii and Indonesia, Obama discusses trying to come to grips with his racial identity through a period of rebellion that included drug use, becoming a community activist in Chicago and traveling to Kenya to understand his father's past. It is in Kenya where he discovers a nation with forty different tribes, each of them saddled with stereotypes of the others. It is also in Kenya where he recognizes the dichotomy that has been his lifelong existence between the graves of his father and his grandfather. His description of this defining moment is worthy of a passage in Alex Haley's "Roots".
Obama is also candid about racism, poverty and corruption in Chicago, and he pulls no punches in his account of this period. Because the book stops in 1995, it does not get into much detail on his learning experiences, culminating in both missteps and triumphs, as a state legislator. For all the value the book provides on Obama's history, I would have appreciated a more substantive update than the preface on the last decade, as he gained political prominence in Illinois, so that we understand more why his time in the spotlight has come at this moment. Perhaps that will be Volume 2. I was also disappointed he spent so little time writing about his mother and the influence her side of the family has had on him, a narrative gap Obama acknowledges and over which he expresses regret in the preface. Perhaps inclusion of such details would have made for a less compelling story from his originally intended Afro-centric perspective; but at the same time, I think a more balanced look at his own racial dichotomy would have made his story resonate all the more given where he is now.
Obama is open in the preface about using changed names and composite characters to expedite the flow and ensure privacy of those around him, but it does somewhat lessen the impact of his story when one starts to wonder who was real and who was a fictionalized character. Regardless of these literary devices, this book is still a very worthwhile look into the background of someone who is on a major upward trajectory in the current national political scene.
Book Review: The Best Book I Read This Summer
Summary: 5 Stars
After his compelling speech at the Democratic Convention, I was interested in knowing more about Illinois next U.S. Senator. The book was amazingly frank, colorfully written, and interesting. For all those who think Obama, "not Black enough," after reading this, I guarantee you'll have a different opinion! I especially enjoyed the details of his trip to his father's native land, Kenya. It made me want to book the next flight out!Book Review: Great Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was great. I couldnt stop reading it. I read this nearly 500 page book in 3 days and was sad when he finished his self discovery which ended with his trip to Kenya. It was clear and the writing was very fluid. This is an excellent first book for Obama and I hope he continues to write more. This will defintely be a classic some day.