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A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Jan. 8th, 2021 01:32 pmA Promised Land
4/5. First volume of memoir. I thought it would be interesting to read this right after Coates's essays spanning the administration, and I was right. They have different conceptions of race in America; Coates addresses this difference directly when he talks about how disconcerted many of his admirers are when they ask how to solve racial injustice and he says he's not sure it's possible. Obama, by contrast, definitely believes it's possible. This is pretty surprising considering a recurrent theme of this volume is his slowly-growing understanding of the movements that arose after his election, in response to his assumption of power. You'd think, even if only from the vantage of hindsight, this would change his fundamental belief in [fill in a lot of shlocky stuff here about how we're all the same underneath it all]. But it didn't. Or he knows he can't say so. I guess I respect that? Sort of? … Sort of.
Anyway, needless to say it's a great book, and worth reading for a lot of personal insight (and excellent Michelle anecdotes). And parts are absolutely riveting, like the closing section on the bin Laden raid. I found the international politics sections in general to be well worth this hefty book (and expensive! Wow!), as he has a clarity of analysis that is unusual. This book does elide some things, as you might expect – there's a notable absence, among all the charming descriptions of close staff and advisors, of a particular senior individual who it later transpired, and I have bitter personal experience to attest, is a liar and a fraud, and I find it impossible to believe he was anything else in 2009. But in general this book is candid and direct, even about uncomfortable things.
Also, just. What a mind. What a gift he was.
4/5. First volume of memoir. I thought it would be interesting to read this right after Coates's essays spanning the administration, and I was right. They have different conceptions of race in America; Coates addresses this difference directly when he talks about how disconcerted many of his admirers are when they ask how to solve racial injustice and he says he's not sure it's possible. Obama, by contrast, definitely believes it's possible. This is pretty surprising considering a recurrent theme of this volume is his slowly-growing understanding of the movements that arose after his election, in response to his assumption of power. You'd think, even if only from the vantage of hindsight, this would change his fundamental belief in [fill in a lot of shlocky stuff here about how we're all the same underneath it all]. But it didn't. Or he knows he can't say so. I guess I respect that? Sort of? … Sort of.
Anyway, needless to say it's a great book, and worth reading for a lot of personal insight (and excellent Michelle anecdotes). And parts are absolutely riveting, like the closing section on the bin Laden raid. I found the international politics sections in general to be well worth this hefty book (and expensive! Wow!), as he has a clarity of analysis that is unusual. This book does elide some things, as you might expect – there's a notable absence, among all the charming descriptions of close staff and advisors, of a particular senior individual who it later transpired, and I have bitter personal experience to attest, is a liar and a fraud, and I find it impossible to believe he was anything else in 2009. But in general this book is candid and direct, even about uncomfortable things.
Also, just. What a mind. What a gift he was.