| |  | Author: Barack Obama
Publisher: Times Books
Category: Book
Buy New: $49.95
New (4) Collectible (4) from $49.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  321 reviews
Sales Rank: 58996
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 403
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.8 x 1.8
ISBN: 081292343X
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.8960730092
EAN: 9780812923438
ASIN: 081292343X
Publication Date: July 18, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New 1st edition Hardcover with dust jacket, 2007 edition copyright 1995, 2004 later printing
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| Customer Reviews:
 New Dreams for America? March 8, 2005
30 out of 49 found this review helpful
Senator Obama is a "truth teller" who has taken us yet another step further down the path to understanding who we Americans really are as a people. His version of the truth is not an unfamiliar one but IS one told with much grace and style.
Barack's family odyssey is a magic carpet ride through space and time; across color lines into different cultures, backgrounds and walks of life, a literary daydream that traipse the globe at the speed of life but that finally and abruptly returns us full circle back to ground zero and ground truth: to the ghettos of Chicago, the housing projects, Altgeld, which, in so many ways, is but a symbolic leitmotif of a world that seem systematically to be losing what remains of its humanity.
One can try to decipher and then argue about the motives for such a book: to exorcise the demons of the timelessly troubled father-son dynamic (or through Freudian interpolation, the equally troubled mother-son dynamic); to unfurl the internal pain, isolation, alienation and uncertainty of having no choice in being flung into a racially bifurcated life in a land where pretenses about racial pedigree seem to be all that really matters; to show that no matter where you land in this world, race does indeed matter -- especially if you are young, Black and male; or that a good education and a commitment to something larger than oneself are the true equalizers in a world of irretrievably distorted and declining values, and ever-diminishing humanity.
Take you pick, whatever is your final answer you will discover that Obama's motives touch his humanity in places and in ways that make us all think more deeply and feel more human; and they always remain complex and compelling. For these universal reasons, the book will endure and deserves a place along side such classics as Alex Haley's Roots.
Beyond the text itself the book has a deeper and somewhat more unsettling meaning. Because if Obama does nothing else he shows us that his life is an object lesson in what it means to be an aware citizen of this world. If he does nothing more he proves that he knows his way around; that he knows the score. He has earned a right to have his views heard. But too much awareness in this world can be a dangerous and unsettling thing.
The lessons of Hawaii, Indonesia, Chicago, New York, Harvard and Kenya is that realities and truths of this life will either hit you in the face or in "the behind:" there is no place to hide; no place for feigned innocence; no place for fantasy or denial. As the book puts it (on page 204) "Black survival in this country has always been premised on a minimum of delusions..."
As uncomfortable as straddling the fence of the racial divide has been, it has taught Obama some cruel but very necessary lessons:
Chicago taught him that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow coalition. In most of the known world self-interest, issues, and religiously motivated action is supposed to lead directly to power. But not so in Chicago. In the ghetto, fear trumps everything including religious values and morals. Fear, poverty and racism degrades in incalculatable and immeasurable ways.
Indonesia taught him that even though power in the U.S. is hidden under a veneer of insincere platitudes, political correctness, pseudo-patriotism and pseudo-relgiousity, benign neglect and other forms of state sanctioned hypocrisy, which makes the use of power seem almost people-friendly; it is not so in the Third world. There, are no pretenses. Power is raw, undisguised, indiscriminate and arbitrary. The only way to make peace with power in the Third World is to hand over your humanity or your life. There are no subtleties, no nuances, no political correctness, no substitutes, and no margin for error. In the Third world, Barack's stepfather Lolo showed that you can't beat the system by playing the angles and operating independently around the margins. No. Appeals to moral suasion do not work; logic doesn't work either. The choices are nepotism, revolution or a life of permanent oppression, poverty and quiet despair existing as a lower form of humanity.
Kenya taught him that there is an ironclad law of human nature: Even when Blacks win, they always lose. Just as Post-Reconstruction turned newly-won freedom into a new kind of slavery for Black Americans, so too did independence turn Black Africa into a continuation of colonialism by other means. There too, as in America, can be found Uncle Toms, compromisers, the lackeys of the white dying colonial power structure and Black hypocrites who will sell their souls for a dollar. Across the Third World, as on the streets of Detroit and Chicago, the echo chamber of poverty and despair can be heard in neighborhoods with too many single Black women having too many unwanted babies, with too few fathers; and in large cities there are too many idle young men of color without the means to become productive citizens. These men know how to act even when they do not know how to be.
In New York he learned that racism, sexism and class are all different sides of the same old chauvinistic coin. Everybody talks about their pet "ism" but no one does a thing about any of them -- especially not about the deep reservoir of racism that lies seething just beneath that city's consciousness.
The book's ultimate truth is that Barack knows that his own "individual advancement," no matter how high he might eventually rise, is unlikely to affect the "collective decline" of the Black race in America. And if he had not learned that through his own experiences, all he needed to do was to observe the impotency of the likes of Clarence Thomas, Colin (and Michael) Powell, or Condoleeza Rice, and their individual or collective ability to affect the Black condition.
As Frank (one of Barack's streetwise mentors) warned him: At Harvard you will have to check your race at the door where you will then be "trained" rather than "educated" receiving at the end of your term an "advanced degree in compromise." If the above list of "well-trained" Black leaders is any indication, Obama can expect the U.S. Congress, to be a continuation of the "training" Frank warned him about.
Now that Senator Obama has arrived at the citadel of American power, the U.S. Senate, whether fair or not, this book will be seen as his moral compass; his contract with us -- America; the manifesto of his philosophy of life, a virtual instruction manual for understanding what makes Obama tick: It will be the yardstick against which the new Senator's actions will be measured: In the end we will all see it as the Truth According to Barack Obama.
Fair or not, Illinois' newest Senator will be judged by the contents of this book, and by the values and techniques he has laid out in it.
He, like the other Junior Senator-the one from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton (who incidentally is also from the Chicago area) has now been sucked into the orbit of the ultimate realm of power, into the cosmic political Black hole of the last standing superpower, where all history begins and ends and where the gravitational pull towards corruption, hypocrisy and "selling out" to corporate interests seems to have no known bounds. [And so far, no one who has entered has escaped with their morals intact.]
The orgy of conservative extremist power that rules Congress today, jeers at the weak; has commandeered all the symbols of religion and state, and has taken over the moral high ground by fiat. It eats its young and takes no prisoners. There is no friendly turf remaining on which neophytes such as Obama can stand his ground. The inmates are running the asylum.
Even today as we watch the ugly spectacle of the transformation of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton ever-"triangulating" her way down to the least common denominator to meet the ever-downward demands of the more popular American center, we can literally see her shedding her old democratic values and redefining them downwards to meet the more popular demands of the mindlessly, racist, amoral American center, in her unholy licentious quest for the Crown Jewel of American politics, the American Presidency.
Those of us who knew her before she became a rich author, a shamed ex-First lady and a feminist media star, wonder what happened to the ex-warrior for the weak; the outspoken radical who while in college single-handedly took on the establishment status quo? How soon we find new gods to serve and new ways to rationalize that service and our new existence.
The same eyes that are watching the moral disintegration of Hillary will also be fixed on Senator Obama's every move. What will he do? Will the system eat him alive, or will it change him as it has changed Hillary, or will he change it? Will he continue to support those who fight in the trenches or will he grab the money and glory and run.
That is the question this book cannot answer. Five stars.
 Excellent autobiography of a very interesting fellow March 5, 2005
23 out of 29 found this review helpful
I didn't take Professor Obama's courses in law school. They seemed too nebulous - "Voting Rights" or "Racism and the Law". But now I wish I had taken his classes. Very few people, and extremely rare for a US Senator, have the kind of upbringing Mr. Obama had. Hawaii, Indonesia, back to Hawaii, LA, NY, Chicago, Kenya. The people of these places play different roles and shape Senator Obama's thinking on poverty, racism, blacks in America and so forth. While this book was written after his stint at law school, he doesn't write about law school. I would be very interested to read about his experience in law school, his adventures as a lawyer and state senator in Illinois and his life as a US Senator. But I will have to wait a few more years for that book.
Overall - read this book - it is an inspiration to humanity and a step to learning about one of the most important political figures in the 21st century (or so I predict).
 Somewhat interesting but lacks the urge to keep reading February 25, 2005
110 out of 152 found this review helpful
I had to read this book for one of my school classes. I was interested in this book because I thought it would be interesting to read what this man has gone through. Yet when I started reading, there was nothing exciting or gripping to make me read on. Obama manages to write 4 pages on the morals behind a lady that wore colored contacts one day. It has nothing to do with the story and makes you lose attention. It gets interesting when Obama hears who his father really was. But immidiately after that, the interest is lost.
I myself have not lived in America during the time of this book, and am not an African American. This book doesn't say much to me.
Finally I think that he should have spend more time discussing his mother and the influences she had on his life.
I wouldn't recommend this book if you do not like books that sometimes lose track of the main plot.
A must read, it will encourage you to look deeper into your heritage February 15, 2005
9 out of 15 found this review helpful
When I picked this book I really had no Idea Barak Obama had such a diverse background. It's a warm story about blood line, home, heritage and personal sacrifice. Its a tale that shows you the identity crisis a mix raced person can go through yet find themselves whole once they decide to explore. A must read for people in general but a must, must read for people trying to find the base of their heritage and existence.
Dreams of My Father is a significant contribution February 14, 2005
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
Barack Obama is lauded as a presidential hopeful, as he is charming, intelligent and personable, in character and driven to achieve. The powerful drives within Obama moves him to search out his roots (reminds me of the quest of Alex Haley, author of Roots)seeking to find himself through his past. This moving and insightful memoir, extols the virtues of family, dedication and perserverance from a personal point of view,while maintaining an emotional connection with the reader. I believe this account may one day rate with the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
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