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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance | 
 enlarge | Author: Barack Obama
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $15.20
You Save: $10.75 (41%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  264 reviews
Sales Rank: 606
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5
ISBN: 0307383415
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.04960730092
EAN: 9780307383419
ASIN: 0307383415
Publication Date: January 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080725212931T
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Product Description
Nine years before the Senate campaign that made him one of the most influential and compelling voices in American politics, Barack Obama published this lyrical, unsentimental, and powerfully affecting memoir, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller when it was reissued in 2004. Dreams from My Father tells the story of Obama’s struggle to understand the forces that shaped him as the son of a black African father and white American mother—a struggle that takes him from the American heartland to the ancestral home of his great-aunt in the tiny African village of Alego.
Obama opens his story in New York, where he hears that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has died in a car accident. The news triggers a chain of memories as Barack retraces his family’s unusual history: the migration of his mother’s family from small-town Kansas to the Hawaiian islands; the love that develops between his mother and a promising young Kenyan student, a love nurtured by youthful innocence and the integrationist spirit of the early sixties; his father’s departure from Hawaii when Barack was two, as the realities of race and power reassert themselves; and Barack’s own awakening to the fears and doubts that exist not just between the larger black and white worlds but within himself.
Propelled by a desire to understand both the forces that shaped him and his father’s legacy, Barack moves to Chicago to work as a community organizer. There, against the backdrop of tumultuous political and racial conflict, he works to turn back the mounting despair of the inner city. His story becomes one with those of the people he works with as he learns about the value of community, the necessity of healing old wounds, and the possibility of faith in the midst of adversity.
Barack’s journey comes full circle in Kenya, where he finally meets the African side of his family and confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life. Traveling through a country racked by brutal poverty and tribal conflict, but whose people are sustained by a spirit of endurance and hope, Barack discovers that he is inescapably bound to brothers and sisters living an ocean away—and that by embracing their common struggles he can finally reconcile his divided inheritance.
A searching meditation on the meaning of identity in America, Dreams from My Father might be the most revealing portrait we have of a major American leader—a man who is playing, and will play, an increasingly prominent role in healing a fractious and fragmented nation.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 259 more reviews...
 But who is HE? July 26, 2008
Very objective, almost arm's length narrative. While one wonders how any child can come through such a childhood unscathed, I missed his own emotional responses to the people and events in his life. In particular, I would have welcomed a sense of his mother's personality. While one got a reasonably good image of his maternal grandparents, the mother remained an enigma.
I read the book in the hope of learning more about Obama, the person, but came away with more questions than answers.
Disappointing July 25, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
In terms of insight to the man, it is a rather disappointing memoir. Not to take anything away from him though, as he does appear to be the real deal in US politics, since JFK.
I expected the book to be a revelation as to how he developed his character and ideas. To understand the circumstances that had forged his personality. And I was let down. As it turns out the book is merely an account of his life-journey just before getting into Harvard. In the end, you get to see that his is an ordinary life, except maybe for the fact that he has an 'international' family background. Even that, does not explain the makings of the man.
So, if you're looking to understand what made Barack Obama into the phenom that he is today, this is not the book my friends.
 A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS July 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Just when my faith in America was at an all-time low, along comes Barack Obama and his very human, extraordinary memoir, full of hope, suffering, loss, joy, redemption, and an abiding faith in God. This is an amazing life: born of a white, American mother and a Kenyan father, he embodies the world spirit at its best. If Obama becomes President, I just know that the whole world will praise America and rejoice. Just think about it for a moment. Fathers and mothers all around the globe will know that their grandchild can potentially grow up to become President of the United States of America. The respect and love America will receive shall eclipse anything She has ever known. It will know no bounds. People we never thought would love America will shed tears of joy. Obama is a Godsend. This memoir is quite explicit, describing even his drug use and loneliness. But it's refreshing to see such a forthright, honest account of a politician's life. Barack Obama made me fall in love with America all over again. God bless this wonderful Country! Finally, a politician I can believe in! I'm so excited for the Future. I had first read "The Audacity of Hope," which I enjoyed, but it already reads like somebody writing as a politician. I much prefer "Dreams from My Father" for its candidness. This is truly a man to remember. Here's to hope!
Update: After Barack's Berlin speech, a handful of pundits accused him of communism. But if I had caught the slightest whiff of communism in either of his books, I would not have written a positive review. Mr. Obama is out there repairing the damage to America's reputation, uniting the world behind us. Last time I checked, Bush's "coalition of the willing" had disintegrated. America has been given a golden opportunity in Barack, an opportunity that comes only once in a generation (if that). Either we leap ahead into the future and continue to lead, or remain stuck and mired in old prejudices. Which will it be?
A good listen. July 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A great story, made all the more interesting by the political prominence that the author has achieved subsequent to its publication.
 He is a good writer! July 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Barack Obama has a gift of writing. This is my second book from him. I liked this book because it was only speaking on how things were.As I've seen some people have had issues and called him a racist. If you really read the book then I would not know why you would call him that.They obviosly missed the point.
Because of his backround i believe that he can unite people within the states and he can also unite America with other countries again.GO OBAMA!
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