Obama and Books

Obama has inspired millions. Many of my non-American friends have been congratulating me on Obama's inauguration-there's a massive sense of hope for the future. There will be a backlash, but when? Until then here's a good piece by Michio Kakutani in The New York Times on Obama and books:

Much has been made of Mr. Obama’s eloquence — his ability to use words in his speeches to persuade and uplift and inspire. But his appreciation of the magic of language and his ardent love of reading have not only endowed him with a rare ability to communicate his ideas to millions of Americans while contextualizing complex ideas about race and religion, they have also shaped his sense of who he is and his apprehension of the world.

Mr. Obama’s first book, “Dreams From My Father” (which surely stands as the most evocative, lyrical and candid autobiography written by a future president), suggests that throughout his life he has turned to books as a way of acquiring insights and information from others — as a means of breaking out of the bubble of self-hood and, more recently, the bubble of power and fame. He recalls that he read James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright and W. E. B. Du Bois when he was an adolescent in an effort to come to terms with his racial identity and that later, during an ascetic phase in college, he immersed himself in the works of thinkers like Nietzsche and St. Augustine in a spiritual-intellectual search to figure out what he truly believed.

As a boy growing up in Indonesia, Mr. Obama learned about the American civil rights movement through books his mother gave him. Later, as a fledgling community organizer in Chicago, he found inspiration in “Parting the Waters,” the first installment of Taylor Branch’s multivolume biography of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

More recently, books have supplied Mr. Obama with some concrete ideas about governance: it’s been widely reported that “Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book about Abraham Lincoln’s decision to include former opponents in his cabinet, informed Mr. Obama’s decision to name his chief Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as Secretary of State. In other cases, books about F. D. R.’s first hundred days in office and Steve Coll’s “Ghost Wars,“ about Afghanistan and the C.I.A., have provided useful background material on some of the myriad challenges Mr. Obama will face upon taking office.

Mr. Obama tends to take a magpie approach to reading — ruminating upon writers’ ideas and picking and choosing those that flesh out his vision of the world or open promising new avenues of inquiry.

I think it might be time to start reading his second book-The Audacity of Hope.

Comments

[Edward]

Yes, I haven't congratulated you on his inauguration, but needlesss to say his success has been very well received here in Australia. More than a few people were emotional during his acceptance speach (me included). He's the only mainstream politician I've ever known who doesn't seem to be playing politics, though ironically to pull off what he's done he must in fact be a master politician - or was it dumb luck :-)? Despite the sometimes negative feedback you might get from some Aussies on America, I reckon we've been looking for a good reason to like America for ages, and as if Pat McCoy wasn't enough, we now have Obama - way to redeem yourselves! Seriously though, we secretly wish the principled and inspirational Obama was our leader, but as the 51st state of America I think we fall under his jurisdiction anyway.

[Patrick McCoy]

Thanks, it is amazing to me how many Thais, Cambodians, French, Aussies, Canadians, Brits, etc...have congratulated me. This is truly a turning point in history, it doesn't seem possible that Obama can live up to the expectations put on him-save the world.

[Edward]

I'm not sure we expect him to save the world - just not go around causing trouble. I think the main thing about Obama is that for the first time in living memory (for most people), everything about your new President (both his principals and his own unlikely success) encapsulates the attributes that America usually ascribes to itself e.g. land of the free, of opportunity, where rights are upheld and anything is possible. It makes it so much easier to accept (even enjoy) American ascendancy when your leader is like this. We do talk about being the 51st state here sometimes - that doesn't sound so bad nowadays.

[Edward]

Oops-I meant 'principles' not 'principals'.