SIGNED CLOTHBOUND BOOK IN SLIPCASE A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the makingfrom the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidencya time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nations highest office. Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U. Partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U. Strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptunes Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden. A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspectivethe story of one mans bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of hope and change, and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible. This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obamas conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day. Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come. [A Promised Land] is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid. The story will continue in the second volume, but Barack Obama has already illuminated a pivotal moment in American history, and how America changed while also remaining unchanged. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The New York Times Book Review. Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States, elected in November 2008 and holding office for two terms. He is the author of two previous New York Times bestselling books, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, and the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. With his wife, Michelle. They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. Preface I began writing this book shortly after the end of my presidencyafter Michelle and I had boarded Air Force One for the last time and traveled west for a long-deferred break. The mood on the plane was bittersweet. Both of us were drained, physically and emotionally, not only by the labors of the previous eight years but by the unexpected results of an election in which someone diametrically opposed to everything we stood for had been chosen as my successor. Still, having run our leg of the race to completion, we took satisfaction in knowing that wed done our very bestand that however much Id fallen short as president, whatever projects Id hoped but failed to accomplish, the country was in better shape now than it had been when Id started. For a month, Michelle and I slept late, ate leisurely dinners, went for long walks, swam in the ocean, took stock, replenished our friendship, rediscovered our love, and planned for a less eventful but hopefully no less satisfying second act. And by the time I was ready to get back to work and sat down with a pen and yellow pad (I still like writing things out in longhand, finding that a computer gives even my roughest drafts too smooth a gloss and lends half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness), I had a clear outline of the book in my head. First and foremost, I hoped to give an honest rendering of my time in officenot just a historical record of key events that happened on my watch and important figures with whom I interacted but also an account of some of the political, economic, and cultural crosscurrents that helped determine the challenges my administration faced and the choices my team and I made in response. Where possible, I wanted to offer readers a sense of what its like to be the president of the United States; I wanted to pull the curtain back a bit and remind people that, for all its power and pomp, the presidency is still just a job and our federal government is a human enterprise like any other, and the men and women who work in the White House experience the same daily mix of satisfaction, disappointment, office friction, screw-ups, and small triumphs as the rest of their fellow citizens. Finally, I wanted to tell a more personal story that might inspire young people considering a life of public service: how my career in politics really started with a search for a place to fit in, a way to explain the different strands of my mixed-up heritage, and how it was only by hitching my wagon to something larger than myself that I was ultimately able to locate a community and purpose for my life. I figured I could do all that in maybe five hundred pages. I expected to be done in a year. Its fair to say that the writing process didnt go exactly as Id planned. Despite my best intentions, the book kept growing in length and scopethe reason why I eventually decided to break it into two volumes. Im painfully aware that a more gifted writer could have found a way to tell the same story with greater brevity (after all, my home office in the White House sat right next to the Lincoln Bedroom, where a signed copy of the 272-word Gettysburg Address rests beneath a glass case). Often, I felt obliged to provide context for the decisions I and others had made, and I didnt want to relegate that background to footnotes or endnotes (I hate footnotes and endnotes). I discovered that I couldnt always explain my motivations just by referencing reams of economic data or recalling an exhaustive Oval Office briefing, for theyd been shaped by a conversation Id had with a stranger on the campaign trail, a visit to a military hospital, or a childhood lesson Id received years earlier from my mother. Repeatedly my memories would toss up seemingly incidental details (trying to find a discreet location to grab an evening smoke; my staff and I having a laugh while playing cards aboard Air Force One) that captured, in a way the public record never could, my lived experience during the eight years I spent in the White House. Beyond the struggle to put words on a page, what I didnt fully anticipate was the way events would unfold during the three and a half years after that last flight on Air Force One. As I sit here, the country remains in the grips of a global pandemic and the accompanying economic crisis, with more than 178,000 Americans dead, businesses shuttered, and millions of people out of work. Across the nation, people from all walks of life have poured into the streets to protest the deaths of unarmed Black men and women at the hands of the police. Perhaps most troubling of all, our democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of crisisa crisis rooted in a fundamental contest between two opposing visions of what America is and what it should be; a crisis that has left the body politic divided, angry, and mistrustful, and has allowed for an ongoing breach of institutional norms, procedural safeguards, and the adherence to basic facts that both Republicans and Democrats once took for granted. This contest is not new, of course. In many ways, it has defined the American experience. Its embedded in founding documents that could simultaneously proclaim all men equal and yet count a slave as three-fifths of a man. It finds expression in our earliest court opinions, as when the chief justice of the Supreme Court bluntly explains to Native Americans that their tribes rights to convey property arent enforceable since the court of the conqueror has no capacity to recognize the just claims of the conquered. Its a contest thats been fought on the fields of Gettysburg and Appomattox but also in the halls of Congress, on a bridge in Selma, across the vineyards of California, and down the streets of New Yorka contest fought by soldiers but more often by union organizers, suffragists, Pullman porters, student leaders, waves of immigrants, and LGBTQ activists, armed with nothing more than picket signs, pamphlets, or a pair of marching shoes. At the heart of this long-running battle is a simple question: Do we care to match the reality of America to its ideals? If so, do we really believe that our notions of self-government and individual freedom, equality of opportunity and equality before the law, apply to everybody? Or are we instead committed, in practice if not in statute, to reserving those things for a privileged few? I recognize that there are those who believe that its time to discard the myththat an examination of Americas past and an even cursory glance at todays headlines show that this nations ideals have always been secondary to conquest and subjugation, a racial caste system and rapacious capitalism, and that to pretend otherwise is to be complicit in a game that was rigged from the start. And I confess that there have been times during the course of writing this book, as Ive reflected on my presidency and all thats happened since, when Ive had to ask myself whether I was too tempered in speaking the truth as I saw it, too cautious in either word or deed, convinced as I was that by appealing to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature I stood a greater chance of leading us in the direction of the America weve been promised. What I can say for certain is that Im not yet ready to abandon the possibility of Americanot just for the sake of future generations of Americans but for all of humankind. For Im convinced that the pandemic were currently living through is both a manifestation of and a mere interruption in the relentless march toward an interconnected world, one in which peoples and cultures cant help but collide. In that worldof global supply chains, instantaneous capital transfers, social media, transnational terrorist networks, climate change, mass migration, and ever-increasing complexitywe will learn to live together, cooperate with one another, and recognize the dignity of others, or we will perish. And so the world watches Americathe only great power in history made up of people from every corner of the planet, comprising every race and faith and cultural practice to see if our experiment in democracy can work. To see if we can do what no other nation has ever done. To see if we can actually live up to the meaning of our creed. The jurys still out. By the time this first volume is published, a U. Election will have taken place, and while I believe the stakes could not be higher, I also know that no single election will settle the matter. If I remain hopeful, its because Ive learned to place my faith in my fellow citizens, especially those of the next generation, whose conviction in the equal worth of all people seems to come as second nature, and who insist on making real those principles that their parents and teachers told them were true but perhaps never fully believed themselves. More than anyone, this book is for those young peoplean invitation to once again remake the world, and to bring about, through hard work, determination, and a big dose of imagination, an America that finally aligns with all that is best in us. The item “BARACK OBAMA AUTOGRAPHED A PROMISED LAND DELUXE 1ST EDITION SAME DAY SHIP” is in sale since Tuesday, December 1, 2020. This item is in the category “Books\Nonfiction”. The seller is “goodjunkinc” and is located in Miami, Florida. This item can be shipped to United States.
- Special Attributes: 1st Edition
- Topic: 21st Century
- Publisher: Crown
- Subjects: Biographies & True Stories
- Format: Hardcover
- Era: 2010s
- Type: Autobiography
- Age Level: Adults
- Author: Barack Obama
- Publication Year: 2020
- Language: English
- Country: USA
- Regional Cuisine: American
