As a rule, I don't generally read autobiographies. Of course, the rule is flexible. It bends, depending on my mood. I do make exceptions --the exceptions tend to be first-hand accounts that contribute to a historical and philosophical understanding of humanity, like Holocaust survivor stories. Personal autobiographies that detail birth to fame or rags to riches, IMO, can sometimes be little more than ego-inflation and self-congratulatory pontification.
But after Barack Obama's speech at the '04 DNC, and his election to the Senate, he emerged as this odd ray-of-hope figure in the minds of despairing (and unrealistic) Democrats. I bought his autobiography on my New Year's trip to Chicago, continuing a cheesy tourist trend of mine (last time in the Windy City, I bought Sandburg's Chicago poems....)
Written years before his current popularity, the book follows the identity politics of a half-white, half-blackAfrican emerging community leader. The reader follows Obama around the world: Kansas, Hawai'i, Indonesia, California, New York, Illinois, Kenya. He is blunt in his observations about race, class, and American cultures and subcultures.
Above all, Obama is a superb writer. His use of language is both lyrical and analytical, and his observations and analyses of people and the social forces that shape them are incredibly perceptive. I, for one, am glad he's in the Senate for the next six years.
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