A Promised Land by Barack Obama: Reflections of the 44th President

 A Promised Land by Barack Obama: Reflections of the 44th President

The reflective nature of autobiographies can be helpful for both readers and writers when exploring the past exploits of subject, most notable when those subjects are people in power. Even before the above memoir, United States Presidents have always released reflections of their time in office a few years after the end of their final term. Many of these allow for the public to be informed of the thought processes behind different decisions or actions taken by former Presidents, especially in times of great strife or conflict. While this does not mean everyone is expected to agree with them because they've decided to explain themselves after the fact in the written word, it can offer an alternative perspective to decisions from the person behind the actions.

No more obvious is this than in former President Barack Obama's A Promised Land, the first volume in a planned duology chronicling his eight years as Commander in Chief of the United States. This first 700-paged tome covers everything from his pre-Presidential political career to the bin Laden compound raid in mid-2011. Written in his own words, Obama takes his readers through the journey of his presidency, outlining the plethora of successes, missteps, and responsibilities associated with the job. He also makes note of his political constituents, highlighting both national and international figures and their own histories as they mesh with his. History also plays a large role in the novel, with reflections about his childhood and about worldwide events coalescing alongside relevant scenarios he discusses. While it's all about President Obama, at the same time it feels like a book stacked with historical tidbits and an overarching sense of how unwittingly a person in power can stack a row of dominos just to watch them fall.

This book felt like an important insight to the way a President views his responsibilities to a nation of over 300 million people. It's also relevant for being the closest thing we have to a modern-day Presidential memoir, the last of its kind, I suspect, for quite some time (though depending on the publishing house, I could be wrong). Hearing from Obama's own words the struggles of acting as the head of an entire nation was interesting, especially when presented with his thought processes for a plethora of decisions he made throughout his tenure. One of the largest focuses of this book was the 2008 economic recession and its subsequent fallout, detailing how Obama attempted to repair the disaster left behind by former President George Bush. I thought it was interesting to read about his attempts at assuring American economic security while also being positioned as a newcomer to politics as a whole. It put into perspective many of the actions and decisions that were made during that time, even though not everything attained perfection.

Another large chunk of the book was dedicated to international relations, with Obama writing about the histories of countries like Russia, China, and Afghanistan to contextualize the meetings he had with leaders of each respectively. I enjoyed learning a more detailed history of each of these countries--as well as our own--whenever he decided to shift into a tangent (something he even warns readers about happening in the book's Forward). There is, however, an occasional sense that not everything about each country's history had to be so well-documented in the book. At one point Obama waxes on about China's history for a few pages too many, getting to the point where I had to be reminded just what the purpose of doing this was. While I appreciated many of the history lessons, the level of detail in some of his tangents distracted from the memoir aspect of the...well, of the memoir. It was nice to have context for some of his musings, but it could have been cut down a bit.

Though at the same time, I was drawn into the many anecdotes and personal moments he decided to put into the book. His descriptions of off-time with his wife, Michelle; his own personal worries about his children growing up as the children of the most powerful man in the country; and the lengths he tries to go to give his children his attention while the rest of the country is vying for it as well. Obama dedicates a fair amount of time to highlighting these moments, at least one small section in each of the books' 7 parts dedicated to a lengthy reflection. He does a good job of drawing readers in and making himself out to be just like the average American in mindset despite the vast amount of power he holds over the country. While some of these moments came off as cheesy and played-up for the book, there is a genuineness to his descriptions that told me he truly went into the world with the best of intentions, no matter the outcome of some of the actions he writes about regretting.

And he is very detailed about writing both his failures and successes down with as much vigor as he can. There's a genuine sense that Obama wanted to convey everything he did as he saw it, willing to own up to his failures while also providing ample reasoning as to why he thought what he did was for the best. There are many moments throughout the book where I didn't agree with his lines of reasoning, and many moments where I did. He wasn't willing to portray himself in a bad or good light outright. This book was not an apology to his dissenters nor a love letter to his supporters. Instead, he was honest about his weak points and triumphant about his strengths. Which helped to make the book engaging, even in the most disagreeable of passages.

If you're interested in the inner workings of the mind of one of the most powerful politicians in the world from the first half of the 2010's, I would recommend picking up a copy of A Promised Land. Be forewarned, though; this book, while informative, can drag in many places. If you're really interested in hearing more about Obama's tenure in detail from the man himself, then this book provides ample amount of interest. But, if you're more inclined to only want to learn about certain aspects of his Presidency from 2009-2011, then trying to search for passages online will suffice. A long, sometimes meandering, but often informative read on the perspective of a modern US President.

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