A Promised Land

 Book 7 of my 2021 Reading Challenge

A Promised Land

by Barack Obama

Summary 

published 2020

The first volume of his presidential memoirs, this book covers the time period from Feb. 2007 (when he announced his candidacy for president) through May 2011 (just over halfway through his first term; the death of Osama bin Ladin was the last big event covered in this book).

First Impressions/Judging a Book by Its Cover

I received this book as a Christmas gift.  While I was very excited and it was on my list, I feel like the gift had ulterior motives as well.  Based on the number of times my daughter has already asked, "have you read the Obama book yet?" because she wants to read it after me, I feel like this was more of a "family gift" and I'm just the lucky one who gets to read it first.

I always note whether memoirs include photographs and looking at them if they do is always where I start.  There are multiple high-quality color photographs which doesn't surprise me because I've also read the photography books by Pete Souza, his photographer at the White House.  If you're a fan of Obama's, I highly recommend following Souza on Instagram - his photos and snarky captions brighten my days.

My Opinion

5 stars

The timing of this leads me to write this review on the day of President Joe Biden's inauguration after I finished this book last night.  Although I was glad I was reading it after the election, I still had to take a break in the aftermath of the Capitol riots because it was too much.  Both reading about the world's issues from the perspective of someone who really cared but also remembering the "intolerable" things not only Obama but also Bush and Clinton before him were criticized for was frustratingly hypocritical.  It just made me sad, not because I'm lifting Obama up as a lofted figure, but because he's just decent and kind and I felt safe with him in charge even when I didn't agree with everything.  I feel the same way about Biden and have a small bit of hope about the direction this country will move in with him in charge.

Reading a hefty 700+ page non-fiction book in a short time period shows how accessible the writing was.  Even when it got out of the campaigning and into the actual politics it was still a page turner with good, solid explanations that didn't become too dry or verbose.  He must have a good editor since he acknowledges brevity is not a talent of his; I loved the way he explained it: "If every argument had two sides, I usually came up with four".  Due to my personal preferences, the foreign stuff was the least interesting to me but I learned a lot.

He also wasn't defensive about decisions he made that didn't hold up with hindsight, and although he was honest about frustrations he felt (this definitely showed "how the sausage is made" more than other political books I've read), it was done with respect. 

Fun fact: my small Iowa town got a name drop during the section about campaigning (Some had grown up in Iowa or the rural Midwest, familiar with the attitudes and way of life of midsized towns like Sioux City or Altoona.)

Fun fact: since Secret Service radios all his moves, "Renegade to Secondary Hold" was the discreet way of saying he was going to the bathroom. 

A Few Quotes from the Book

"Despite all that, [the American people] had given me a chance. Through the noise and chatter of the political circus, they'd heard my call for something different. Even if I hadn't always been at my best, they'd divined what was best in me: the voice insisting that for all our differences, we remained bound as one people, and that, men and women of goodwill could find a way to a better future.

 I promised myself I would not let them down."

"No matter what you might tell yourself, no matter how much you've read or how many briefings you've received, nothing entirely prepares you for those first weeks in the White House."

"...my first hundred days in office revealed a basic strand of my political character. I was a reformer, conservative in temperament if not in vision. Whether I was demonstrating wisdom or weakness would be for others to judge."

"I thought about the country I'd just described to [the graduates] - a hopeful, generous, courageous America, an America that was open to everyone. At about the same age as the graduates were now, I'd seized on that idea and clung to it for dear life. For their sake more than mine, I badly wanted it to be true."