|
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance | 
 enlarge | Author: Barack Obama
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $14.60
You Save: $11.35 (44%)
New (32) Used (9) Collectible (11) from $10.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  223 reviews
Sales Rank: 304
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
Condition: Brand New Book! Free Tracking Number emailed immediately upon shipment. Not a book club edition.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
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.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 218 more reviews...
 Getting to know Sen. Barack Obama May 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This has been a wonderful insight into one of our democratic candidates for the presidential election. Sen. Obama's writing style is wonderful and I have a much greater awareness of him. This is an excellent book for every one to read.
 A life story told with courage and compassion May 14, 2008
Gives an insight into the life and family of one of the most gifted politicians of our times.
 A racist and racecard puller for president? really?? May 14, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
"I ceased to advertise my mothers race at the age of 12 or 13."-Obama writes, "Our rage at the white world needed no object...no independant confirmation; it could be switched on and off at our pleasure."
OBAMA sounds like A RACIST to me!
its a good thing for obama that "typical white people" dont read books; or this would of killed his chances long ago!
Is this the kind of stuff that MLK Jr would have said or did? No...he had every reason to be hateful towards "other races" that "oppressed" him; but he wasnt...he simply went out and created the change he wanted to see; he didnt blame anybody or go to a church that talked about hate and blame...what kind of god would that be that tought such things?
How come oprah left rev wrights church in less than two years....but obama has been there for over 20 yrs?
A Must-read! May 9, 2008
Obama's book is a must-read for those who want to know the Barack Obama, the man, his character and principles before he becomes our president!
Great autobiography May 9, 2008
enjoyed reading this first book by Obama. Moving story. Well written and gives further insight on an inspirational leader.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
