BookLife Review: A Promised Land, by Barack Obama
audiobook, President Barack Obama, Obama Administration, Global Financial Crisis 2007-08, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, Operation Neptune's Spear,Deepwater Horizon, leadership, oratory
The man, the memoir, and that voice. Fan or opponent, any student of American History, US Government, the art and challenge of legislating or the United States Congress should read A Promised Land. Better yet, she or he should listen to it. Generally speaking, I am not an audiobook lover. I enjoy seeing words upon a page (or a paper white screen if I am traveling), with the ability to thumb back a few pages to review something I missed, to reread a paragraph that suggests the meaning of a later clue or to simply read aloud for the pure joy of having beautiful language spill from my tongue. This book is one of my notable exceptions to my printed book preference.
Barack Obama has an instantly identifiable and resonant voice with sufficient gravitas that it aligns perfectly with his gift for language and oratory. The man can tell a story, and a decent joke. His voice has a warm timbre. In addition, Obama has honed a cadence and style of delivery that is not only the stuff of mimics from stand up comedy cellars to Saturday Night Live, but worthy of a State of the Union address or the eulogy at a funeral of an icon like John Lewis (not to mention the pipes for a round of Amazing Grace.) In a nutshell, the recognizability of his voice and his skill with oratory gives the audiobook significant added value over the mere printed version.
This book also is not a lot of things on the way to what it is. It is not a tired and detailed recounting of every moment of his childhood, each teacher, grade, home, school achievement or travel opportunity. It is not an exploration of his family, extended or immediate. There are, of course, an appropriate number of pages devoted to his early years and the key influences he found there, but that is not the focus or purpose of this work. Nor is it a full, diary-laden accounting of his campaigns, the elections, his inaugurations or a catalogue of private moments with family and friends.
It is a memoir focused on the early years of his Presidency. I believe he states outright that this is volume one and there will be other volumes to come. It is almost a conversation or an explanation of his thought-process and his emotional response to key events. It is a behind-the-scenes recounting of what transpired between him and his advisors as he addressed important moments in American history—the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 and 2008 that was upon him immediately on assuming office; the Dodd Frank Wall St. Reform Act; Operation Neptune’s Spear ( to capture or kill Osama bin Laden), the Deepwater Horizon incident, the Sandy Hook school shooting, and the burgeoning animosity and obstacles he experienced from a Republican Congress. It is a candid reveal of how he navigated through these issues and challenges. It is about his extraordinary work habits; he spent most nights after family dinner in the residence library pouring over briefing books to remain afloat in the most demanding job in the world, even for someone with his extraordinary intellect. It is about how he relied on and interacted with his trusted advisors, who often checked his impulse to take action with a steadying recommendation to observe and gather more information before acting. It is about his compassion; he directed his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, to select ten letters a day from the thousands that came to him at the White House and he personally responded to those. It is about how he managed to build bridges to reach some levels of compromise to advance legislation, accepting losses and not allowing his vision of the ideal to become the enemy of the good for something.
When the final audio chapter concluded, I felt elevated, privy to genius, and so much better informed than any amount of news-watching and newspaper reading had given me during this time. Full disclosure, I admired this President all along, and celebrated our nation’s forward progress in electing it’s first person of color to the Office of President. That said, this one is not for Democrats only; it is a gold mine for anyone who likes a serious book about US history and politics.