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The Audacity of Hope

Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

By Barack Obama

(225)

| Paperback | 9780307237705

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Book Description

“A government that truly represents these Americans–that truly serves these Americans–will require a different kind of politics. That politics will need to reflect our lives as they are actually lived. It won’t be pre-packaged, ready to pull off the shelf. It will have to be constructed from the best of our traditions and will have to account for the darker aspects of our past. We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we’ll need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break.”
–from The Audacity of Hope

In July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular anchored itself in listeners’ minds, a reminder that for all the discord and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what Senator Obama called “the audacity of hope.”

Now, in The Audacity of Hope, Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics–a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies” we see in congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of “our improbable experiment in democracy.” He explores those forces–from the fear of losing to the perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media–that can stifle even the best-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising intimacy and self-deprecating humor, about settling in as a senator, seeking to balance the demands of public service and family life, and his own deepening religious commitment.

At the heart of this book is Senator Obama’s vision of how we can move beyond our divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and the transnational threats–from terrorism to pandemic–that gather beyond our shores. And he grapples with the role that faith plays in a democracy–where it is vital and where it must never intrude. Underlying his stories about family, friends, members of the Senate, even the president, is a vigorous search for connection: the foundation for a radically hopeful political consensus.

A senator and a lawyer, a professor and a father, a Christian and a skeptic, and above all a student of history and human nature, Senator Obama has written a book of transforming power. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution, he says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans. Those Americans are out there, he writes–“waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

From the Hardcover edition.

Critics

In Lincoln's footsteps

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama 384pp, Canongate, £14.99 For even the most seasoned observers of American politics, Barack Obama is a phenomenon. In normal circumstances, it would be unthinkable for a p ... (read full critics)

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

His hope springs eternal

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama Canongate £14.99, pp375 The candidate is already 2007's champion fundraiser. He has momentum. Old Clinton stalwarts desert Hillary to serve at his side. It must be a Democrat for the White House next time, they sa ... (read full critics)

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

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21 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

Rating:
(225)
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English Books
Paperback 384 Pages
Edition: Reprint
ISBN-10: 0307237702
ISBN-13: 9780307237705
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Pub date: Nov 06, 2007
Dimensions: 1290 mm x 839 mm x 129 mm Just how big is that?
Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, Others and eBook
In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Libri Italiani