Dreams From My Father

Critics

• "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance "

  (Reviewed by Poornima Apte NOV 29, 2007) Like most other Americans, I first heard of Barack Obama, the charismatic senator from Illinois, at the 2004 Democratic Convention. His famous “Red State, Blue State” speech, almost Kennedy-esque in tone made ... (read full critics)

  mostlyfiction published on Wed, 29 Sep 2010

• A candidate's tale

  Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama Canongate pounds 12.99 Is America ready for a black President? That's the question exercising the US political class this summer. More specifically, is America ready to elect Barack Obama to the White House in 20 ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

24 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  This is a remarkable book, especially written before Obama became famous. This is a man who only really saw his father once at ten, raised by white grandparents, for his potential he was promised fortune in his first job, but turned his back and did community work for two and a half years, then wen ... (continue)

  This is a remarkable book, especially written before Obama became famous. This is a man who only really saw his father once at ten, raised by white grandparents, for his potential he was promised fortune in his first job, but turned his back and did community work for two and a half years, then went to harvard law school and became the first black president for Harvard Law Review, and again turned his back for a lucretive law practice to do civil rights work.

  This book chronicles the part up till and before he went to Harvard. Everything he wrote there had the struggle of a racial undertone, that he was not black enough for the blacks and yet a black man for the whites, that he had to struggle for his identity, that he had to come to terms with his father. The most moving part of the book came at the end when he wept at his father and grandfather's grave in Kenyan.

  This is a remarkable man and this is a great man who can change the american history for the better for both whites and blacks and heal the racial divisions.

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  Oz said on Apr 6, 2008 | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Highest Recommendation

  We need more books like this, and men like Barack Obama, a true leader.

  Read it yourself and see why I leave it at that.

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  Carobookie said on Oct 9, 2008 | Add your feedback

• 

  Left unfinished, although it's not a bad read.

  I have tried reading this book several times, but I ended up setting it aside in all two or three occasions. It's not that the book is bad. It contains a few good reflections on American politics, and Obama tries to discuss the issues from a point of view that is not overly partisan. Still, it re ... (continue)

  I have tried reading this book several times, but I ended up setting it aside in all two or three occasions. It's not that the book is bad. It contains a few good reflections on American politics, and Obama tries to discuss the issues from a point of view that is not overly partisan. Still, it reads as what I think it was, the presentation of someone who was getting ready to run for President.

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  Jesus Ortega Segura said on Sep 16, 2011 | Add your feedback

• 

  This man's a genius, he should run for President of the United States! Actually when this book first came out in 2006 I realized then that it was Senator Obama's unofficial announcement that he was going to be running in 2008, it just took me until now to dedicate the time to read it. He puts fort ... (continue)

  This man's a genius, he should run for President of the United States! Actually when this book first came out in 2006 I realized then that it was Senator Obama's unofficial announcement that he was going to be running in 2008, it just took me until now to dedicate the time to read it. He puts forth a lot of good ideas in this book but as we see in politics ideas don't always translate into policy, especially in a two-party system where one side counts an opponents defeat as a win for their side. If half these ideas could ever be implemented, (and most of them seem pretty tame), America and the world could be a better place.

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  Stcin10 said on May 14, 2011 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• DREAMS FROM MY FATHER

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  Lupigras33200 said on Apr 20, 2011 | Add your feedback

• 

  Written before Barack Obama became President or even a politician, Dreams from my Father is a thoughtfully and honestly written memoir that really lets you see the kind of person he is, and what black-white relations are like in his eyes. His sojourn in Kenya is particularly illuminating.

  H ... (continue)

  Written before Barack Obama became President or even a politician, Dreams from my Father is a thoughtfully and honestly written memoir that really lets you see the kind of person he is, and what black-white relations are like in his eyes. His sojourn in Kenya is particularly illuminating.

  His writing is deeply introspective and controlled, which is pleasing to the intellect, but his emotional reservations - at least that's how I feel - leave me wanting more of how he truly feels. The back of the book says he "at last reconciles his divided inheritance", but it feels to me that instead of reconciliation, he is just putting the matter aside and going forward anyway, mindful of his inability to reconcile this division.

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  Holmes said on Apr 19, 2011 | Add your feedback

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Book Details

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• English Books
• Paperback 464 Pages
• ISBN-10: 1847670946
• ISBN-13: 9781847670946
• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Pub date: Jun 05, 2008
• Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Libri Italiani

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