I’ll start by saying that A Promised Land is a looooong read. The hardback weighs in at 701 pages, not including Acknowledgements and Index and I have to say that the index is very comprehensive. I got it for Christmas 2020, which was a lovely surprise. It had been on my book wish list, which I handily keep very visible so the husband can see it, but I hadn’t actually expected to get the hardback because a book of this size ain’t cheap. I’ve been picking away at it through January and February, mainly reading a chapter or two every couple of days with a cup of tea in the afternoon – I would say it’s probably not a bedtime read because it’s a book that definitely requires concentration.
I’m not American, but I did emigrate to Canada the year
before Obama became US president and I do live right on the 49th
parallel so I read this book as a more than interested bystander to this period
of US political and social history. Opinions differ on whether he was a good or
effective president depending on where you sit on the political divide and if
you don’t agree with his politics, you’re probably not reading this book
anyway. However that aside, one thing I can say with certainty is that I’ve
always thought that Barak Obama is a good, well intentioned human being trying
to do a difficult job in a hostile political environment and this book has
reinforced that belief.
He says at the start that he initially thought he could write
about his time in office in around 500 pages. In fact this book only covers the
period from his earliest thoughts of politics through to part way through the
second year of his first term as president. So it’s no surprise that this is
only the first volume of presidential memoirs. I’ll be surprised if he can fit the other six
years into just one more book.
Although the book is long and covers a relatively short time
in the White House, it’s not a self-indulgent book. It’s a book that reflects
the man himself, who sweats the small stuff and believes that the minutiae of
sound policy making and listening to as many points of view as possible is as
important as the seemingly effortless public oratory that mark his public
appearances (as an aside, as an ex-government communications person whose job
included speechwriting, I can say creating effortless oratory is usually
anything but effortless). He says in the preface that he wanted to pull the
curtain back on life in the White House, not only of what it was like to be
president, but also to highlight the work of all the people who work behind and
in front of the scenes. In doing this he emphasises that while the buck stops
at the Resolute Desk, there are many voices in the room that lead up to both
the large and small decisions that steer the course of the United States.
As I said, I’m not American but I think it’s pretty obvious
that with the best will in the world it was going to be almost impossible for him to live up to the
expectations that were laid on his shoulders as the first African American
president and as a non-establishment Democrat coming to office after eight
years of Bush Republicanism. One of the things that shocked me in reading this
book is to remember just how much was going on in the first couple of years of
Obama’s first term. He inherited an economy in freefall after the 2008
economic meltdown. Hard on the heels of that came an H1N1 outbreak, which
resonates in today’s pandemic world. The Deepwater Horizon disaster happened
and the Arab Spring was blossoming in the middle east. The book ends with the
operation to kill Osama Bin Laden. Any one of those would be challenging in
terms of both politics and policy, but getting them all stacked up one after
another or in some cases concurrently is enough to make anyone put their head
in their hands and wonder why the hell they took on a job like that in the first place.
But before the book gets into that, there are whole
fascinating sections about his early career, both in and out of politics and his
family roots. There is also a great section detailing the length of the madness in
the US presidential campaign cycle which has always boggled my mind, with an excellent
accounting of Obama’s campaign running against Hillary
Clinton for the Democratic nomination and then for the presidency itself. It’s also really interesting to read
about their relationship once Obama won the presidency and how Hillary was
initially reluctant to take the offered role of Secretary of State.
Outside of the big events it is many of the personal details
that resonate and he’s clear on the effect of the presidency on his family. How
Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha and Malia responded is important to
his narrative and I really appreciated that, because it’s an acknowledgement
that being president is not all about him. Candid comments about the toll
campaigning took on family life, about Michelle’s response when he said he
wanted to run for president, his pride in how she carved her own niche as First
Lady to promote causes she was passionate about and how their daughters Sasha
and Malia adapted to the restrictions of life in the White House paint a fuller
picture of both Obama the politician and Obama the man. The importance of their
strong family relationships is a bedrock theme of this accounting and I
appreciated that he is honest enough to acknowledge that it wasn’t all plain
sailing.
Inevitably Trump looms on the horizon. He doesn’t get mentioned
until fairly late on but reading this book after four years of Trumpism, it’s
both refreshing to be reminded of a time when there was a thoughtful adult in
the White House and shocking to realise just how quickly the idealism and
internationalism of Obama’s administration sank into the petty name calling,
self-interest and nationalism that characterised the Trump presidency. All I
can say is Biden has a big job ahead of him to reset the course and that I’m
rooting for him. Anyway, much as I hate to give him page space, I’ll return to
Trump for a moment. Being reminded about the proliferation of the birther
rumours promoted by Trump and his ilk is a demonstration of just how threatened
some people were by having an African American in the White House and it’s
interesting to see how a joke about the birther rumour by Obama at Trump's
expense at the White House Correspondents Dinner caused the room to laugh, but
Trump didn’t. Trump doesn’t like to be laughed at and you can imagine the roots of
an animosity that was already taking hold through the birther rumour-mongering start to crystallise in
that moment into an obsession to obliterate any and all of Obama's achievements, both large and small. One small thing I really enjoyed is while Obama doesn’t spend
a lot of time on Trump, the small titbits he does write about are priceless,
such as Trump offering to plug the Deepwater Horizon well and when that was
declined, because you know, he doesn’t exactly have the resumé
for the job, Trump immediately pivoted to offering to build “a beautiful
ballroom” on the south lawn of the White House – how very multi-talented of
him…
One of the main takeaways from the book is just how partisan
US politics has become and how the Republicans led by Mitch McConnell
constantly voted against bills just because they were proposed by Democrats
(something we’re seeing again in the early months of Biden’s term). One of the
most horrifying quotes is from when Obama and his team are trying to come up
with variations on economic stimulus that Republicans might support and one
Republican senator is quoted as saying “but the worse people feel right now,
the better it is for us.” So much for politicians being elected to
represent the people!
This is a book with a lot of heft, both physically and
intellectually. It’s a picture of Obama as family man, politician, idealist,
negotiator and realist – all the things that go into the make up of a leader.
In the end I took away the impression of Obama as a moral man trying to live up
to impossible expectations. How history will judge him remains to be seen, but as
I say, it was refreshing to be reminded of the time when there was a grown up
in the White House before the madness of the last four years. I look forward to
reading the next volume of his memoirs when they appear, which will probably
run for another 700 pages.
On a final, final note, apart from being a very
well-written book, it also contains some great photographs that provide a peek
behind the scenes of Obama’s life and presidency – with his family, on the
campaign trail, on state visits as well as informal snapshots of life in and
out of the White House. Sometimes a book of this heft, written by someone who
is extremely detail orientated can get bogged down and these photos provide an
immediacy that gives real life to some of the heavier sections - a bit like
seeing a film before you read the book it’s based on. Having said that, I’d say
wholeheartedly to anyone, yes look at the photos, but definitely read the book
because it’s worth your time.
A Promised Land by Barak Obama was first published in 2020
and my copy was published by Crown
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