Obama: From Promise to Power

Author: Mendell, David
Place of Publication: 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022
Company: HarperCollins Publishers

Reason, Type, and Setting: Since the presidential elections will be coming up very soon, I decided I wanted to be informed of the candidates. I have already read an autobiography of Hillary Clinton so I thought I would read a biography of Barack Obama who has been getting a lot of attention recently. This book would be categorized under biographical political science. It takes place throughout Obama’s childhood to now. His childhood took place in the island of Hawaii during the 1960s, to Harvard in Massachusetts, and eventually to Illinois where he became senator in 2004.

Plot: This book did not really have a plot, it is more of a biography. There are some accounts of Obama having some interpersonal conflicts dealing with his desire to "fit in" with his roots since he is multi-racial. This biography isn't written in a way where it is like a research paper where it starts from birth till present and gives facts, but it is written in way where you can sense the emotions of Obama and the people around him during the different times in his life.

Character: I will describe Obama's character since he is the focus in this book. Barack Obama is around six feet and of a multi-racial background with his father being from Kenya and his Caucasian mother from Kansas. He likes to keep his hair short, but during his high school days he had a fro and he made use of his tall but thin frame by playing basketball. He is a strong person who holds up to his values and is a well-spoken person who is open-minded and is very willing to listen to both sides to comes up with a fair decision.

Evaluation: I found this book of Obama's life to be very interesting the first few hundreds of pages, but 400 pages is a bit too many. It seemed to be an easy read but for someone who does not want to read about politics or political life it may be a tedious read. I really liked how this book informed me of how one's childhood can shape someone's future and that can be seen through Obama's life when you read this book. While reading this biography, I got a sense of the different events in his life that lead up to his decisions and personality. This is one thing I really like about biographies/autobiographies is that you can see why people turn out to be the way they are. I find that since the elections are coming up, even though I can't vote yet, I thought I'd read about some candidates especially Obama since I've seen how much attention he has been getting. I find this book to be more of an informative read than an important one. It's a book I would read out of curiosity and if I want to be informed of his life.

Author, Context, and Trivia: David Mendell is a journalist for the Chicago Tribune and writes articles pertaining to politics and urban issues and has written about five books with topics as those as well. One book that I have read like this biography is Hillary Clinton's autobiography. They both share the fact that they were law students who became senators with Obama in Illinois and Hillary in New York. I like the style or writing that Obama was written rather than Hillary's autobiography. I think that I'd like to go back to reading novels rather than biographies. I wanted to try reading a more varied selection of genres, which is why I read this book along with my other reasons mentioned previously.