This book stayed on my back burner, as I assumed it was outdated (2006). Especially the "hope" part! So much has happened since 2006. But, surprise -- the book felt very current. The split in our country goes way back before Trump, and Obama addressed this fairly well. He seemed to vacillate on a lot of issues with "on the other hand..." and I wondered if his middle-of-the-road stance was laying the groundwork for a presidential run. Of course, since he was elected president two years later.

His personal stories were a delight since I'd just read Michelle's "Becoming" and got his point of view of some of her family tales.

So, why was I finally prompted to read this one? Because the Goodreads History Club is about to start his "A Promised Land" and I like to go in order. And I'd already read his first book, "Dreams of my Father." Now I'm looking forward to his latest book, to see if he still has hope! Of course, he does. That's his brand!

I was deeply torn reading 'The Audacity of Hope.' Having spent the Trump era longing for the vaguely comprehensible normalcy of the Obama presidency - only to have been dumped into the world of COVID - the opening chapters of Audacity drum up a melancholic memory of those bygone days when hope did, indeed, seem possible in politics.

Obama's thesis is, at first blush, a seemingly reasonable prescription for restoring civility and bipartisanship to politics. 'If we could only just recognize the good will and common passion for the future of our country in our political adversaries,' Obama essentially argues, 'we can return to the bright days of more collaborative politics.' It's a recipe wherein the left and the right alike need to acknowledge the ways in which they've been divisive, come to amends, and walk forward in a shared spirit of camaraderie.

It seems hard to argue with this. Indeed, I dedicate much of my life to trying to empathize with those I disagree with; to reach those who don't share my beliefs; to check the biases that arise from my predilections and persuasions.

But, this 2008 volume no longer seems audacious. At best, it seems naive. At worst, it's a pernicious 'both-sides-ism' to shore up theocratic, capitalistic structures by the best Republican one could ever hope for, a Democratic president.

Some things in the book are just laughably bad. Obama defends the need for insurance-driven healthcare reform because, god forbid, we wouldn't want the "rationing of healthcare of Canada" (a little too on the nose to have read the day America posted over a million new COVID cases). He emphasizes how Black communities would be better off if they just had more police. He staunchly defends just how critical marriage and faith are for the survival of America, all the while patting himself on the back as father extraordinaire for showing up to a few of his kids' soccer games.

But, the reason I give the book two stars - a rating reserved for those volumes that actively mislead - is that his diagnosis of the problem is so caught up in trying to play the 'both sides need to meet in the middle' card that it could be a GOP think tank line.

At its heart, Obama's argument is that both sides share the blame for polarization. If the democrats would just be willing to be reasonable and realize that, say, George W. was a good guy trying to do the right thing... well, we could meet in the middle and forgive.

But, that's just not the way the world works. In the decade and a half since the publication of this book, we've watched the extreme right of the political system try to tear apart every institution - except those that allow them to enforce theocratic values. The GOP has no desire to try to use government for good: its sole purpose is to erode and dismantle as many institutions as possible, except for the ones they can use to enforce heteronormative marriage, police power, or abortion prohibitions.

In 2021, Obama's admonishment that both sides ought to meet in the middle is akin to telling the person who just lost their home to arson that, well, if they would just recognize that the arsonist was a good person, everything would be good. (Spoiler alert: It wouldn't. The arsonist simply gets off on burning shit down, and the fundamental assumption of goodwill at best opens yourself up to abuse, and at worse enables the abuse of others.)

So, it was a deeply disappointing book. Maybe 20% of the disappointment was from being reminded that American Democrats are the best card-carrying conservatives you could hope for in their eagerness to expand police powers, endorse American exceptionalism, demand Judeo-Christian ethics, and the like. But 80% of the disappointment came from realizing how much supposedly audacious hope seems to look a lot more like telling someone to be more empathetic to the arsonist who gets their kicks from burning up your stuff.

I’m assuming Obama will be the next President of the USA. That will probably be a good thing. Recently I did an online quiz to pick which candidate I would be most likely to vote for – as an Australian this was purely an academic exercise – but it said I should support Obama. Naturally, my politics and his are quite different – I’m to his extreme left, but I thought I should find out more about him just the same.

It is an odd thing how different Australians are from Americans. We are both ‘frontier’ societies with a history of appalling treatment of our native peoples – but I think we have made a better stab at multiculturalism than has been the case in the US. From reading this book it also seems clear that we do community better here than the US does.

One of our biggest worries is that we might be becoming more like America. The US Health System (if that is not an oxymoron) rightly frightens the life out of us – we, at least, have some semblance of a national health system. Medicare may not be perfect, but God save us from the US system!

There were parts of this book that gave me slight cause for hope – it did seem like he might try to do something about education, and might even help people retrain to get better jobs. His criticisms of corporate America’s disproportionate influence on politics due to the money it was able to pour in was reassuring, if only because he noticed it might be a problem.

There were parts of the book that made me cringe – the stuff about his family and how much he loved his wife was all a bit saccharine for my tastes. Some of the writing was overly flowery. But I think possibly Australians are a bit more reserved with this stuff (a bit more British) than Americans and what makes us cringe might well seem quite endearing in the US.

All the same, wouldn’t it be wonderful if a candidate for US President did not have to declare themselves Christian to have any hope of being elected? As a nation that has had at least one Agnostic Prime Minister (Bob Hawke – although, as the joke went, that was only because Bob wasn’t sure if he was God or not) it seems insane the obsession that religion is in American politics. For a country that likes a personal relationship with God the US certainly does like that personal relationship to be as public as possible.

I was surprised at how much time was spent in this book talking about God – our politicians would never do this – not at such length. The other bit of the book that made me cringe was him talking to Senator Bird and proudly declaring himself a committed Christian. Bird saying to him that all he needed by his side were the American Constitution and the Bible was also very concerning.

I was flicking though The Rights of Man recently and was interested when Paine said that it wasn’t for one generation to limit for all time the extent of the hopes and dreams of all following generations. This is the second book by a US politician I’ve read recently – the other being Gore’s The Assault on Reason – and I’ve been surprised in both at how much time is spent talking about the glories of the founding documents and the nearly god like reverence shown for the founding fathers. This is something else that is completely alien in Australian politics. It is not just that in the main we have no idea about our own Federation – but no one here has a clue about the Australian constitution, which is also a matter of some pride to most Aussies. Mostly, those who do know something about it see it as a deeply flawed document that it is impossible to fix and should be more or less ignored. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live in a country that has such a view of its own importance and historical infallibility – I’m quite sure I wouldn’t like it. But I’ve never been good at crowds – particularly not flag waving crowds.

Obama recognises that money is a problem in American politics, but I think I would still go further than him. It isn’t so much money that is the problem, but a problem with the American psyche in which, it seems from afar, the only measure for success and worth of anyone is how much money they have made. The US government appears to be little more than a rich man’s club, something else Obama talks about in his book – it is hardly surprising that so few ordinary people seem to be bothered to vote in what appears to be a popularity contest between the obscenely wealthy.

I have often wondered if societies have become too large to be properly governed as democracies. Plato put limits on the size of his ideal republic – I can’t remember what it is, but I think it might have been 30,000 people – something like that anyway. There are 300 million in the US – is it really a silly question to ask whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure? How ‘democratic’ it can be must surely be a question worth considering.

There is a part of me that worries that America believes its own myths far too much.

But Obama does look like he might try to help the poor, that he might seek to finally do something to address the shame that is racism, that he might do something to reduce the US deficit (which is increasingly a threat to world economic growth) and might even do something to improve health care, maternity leave, and other family friendly policies. Of course, my hope is a little more audacious – that one day there might just be a President of the US who doesn’t feel they have to denigrate their mother’s secular humanism as their only hope of being elected. That the US might one day consider someone’s worth not as being measured purely by the size of their bank account and that paying taxes will be seen as something proudly done because it is the price one pays to live in a civilisation.

I can’t help but feel that while the US cuts taxes to the bone, prefers its citizens to beg in the humiliation that is charity rather than turn when in need to the dignity of social welfare, while the US gleefully punishes the poor and the working class with unliveable wages, while the US talks of placing the ten commandments in the courtrooms that sentence people to death in contradiction of the ‘thou shalt not kill’ they would hypocritically engrave into the walls, it will always be hard for me to understand the US.

But if Obama does half what he says he will in this book, even as modest a proposal as it seems, then perhaps, just maybe, there is some cause for hope.

Superb rhetorician. Polished delivery. (I listened to this as an audio book.) Consummate politician. (His words worked well with varying positions he may or may not take.) Would make a great friend and neighbor. (Genuine and endearing family anecdotes -- courtship, diapers, daughters with wardrobe issues, wife with absentee-husband issues.) But overall, it was clear that he and I see things through very different lenses, and that through his lens he sees himself being somewhat bigger than life. I disagree with many of his fundamental assumptions. Well-educated he may be, but his significant biases and inattention to facts betray him. Too smooth for comfort. And I still don't understand what "audacity of hope" means. "Hope" is not the right word for this book. How about "Scary"?

I bought this book in April during an unexpectedly long layover at the Houston airport, read half of it, then forced myself to put it down as I was becoming too emotionally invested in the prospect of an Obama presidency and felt that I needed to pace myself, since it was only April and I am frankly still recovering from the political PTSD of November 2004. I picked it up again during another transcontinental trip this past week and determined to finish it this time, hoping to educate myself about the specifics of Obama's political vision so I can volunteer for him more effectively in October. It was easy to polish off--very readable, but substantive enough to merit a cover-to-cover journey. It left me with an arsenal of arguments to deploy the next time anyone claims that Obama is all platitudes and no plan, and it provided some indications of what kind of compromises he would likely pursue if (insha'Allah) he gets elected.

In short, the book confirmed a bunch of things that I already feel about Obama--first, that he has exceptional capacities for (self)-reflection and empathy, two qualities that are essential to just, humane, responsible leadership, and two qualities that have proven elusive at best to the platoon of d-bags who have been at America's helm for the past 7+ years. Second, that he has a measured, working knowledge of history that he draws on routinely to make sense of current dilemmas and debates and to posit logical solutions to supposedly intractable problems. And third, that he is genuinely invested in and skilled at carving out common ground on a whole range of contemporary issues--which I truly admire, since it is more than I can say for myself when faced with even the most benign political arguments at this point, despite my best efforts. The chapter on faith is particularly masterful--Obama's description of his own religious journey is moving and rational; I related to it as a non-believer, but I would imagine a believer could relate as well. Common ground at its best, on a topic that I usually find utterly alienating.

Admittedly, _The Audacity of Hope_ is more _Profiles in Courage_ than _A Theory of Justice_, but whatever, the dude is running for office, and it's pretty heartening that a presidential candidate has taken the time to generate some intellectual capital about American's political system, both as it is and as it should be. Not that I needed convincing.

Barack Obama fills me with hope.

Hope for the United States, and hope for America's standing on the world stage.

This book shows the human side of a man who is running for president. He tackles many different issues from faith, race, family life, war, international relations, and politics.

All are done in a thoughtful manner.

I get the sense that when he attempts to address an issue that he truly wants to hear from all interested parties, and work to come to an accommodation that everyone can live with.

At least that is his goal from the outset.

He gave an example of a legislative accomplishment from his days in the Illinois State Senate. It was a bill that required law enforcement to videotape interrogations and confessions in capital cases. At the beginning of the process, no one gave it any chance of passing. The police unions were opposed because they thought it would interfere with their jobs, death penalty opponents were opposed to anything which might weaken their goal at abolishing executions, the legislators were skittish and didn't want to vote for something that might seem "soft on crime," and the new governor had publicly come out against it during the campaign season.

It sounded like it would be impossible to get passed. Yet, Obama felt that there was common ground. That no one wanted an innocent person ending up on death row or someone guilty of a capital crime be allowed to go free.

It was in that spirit that he began negotiations with all the various interested parties. He changed some aspects of the bill when flaws were shown, but he held firm to his principles when attempts were made to substantially alter the impact of the legislation.

At the end of the process, all parties endorsed the bill.

He credits that one of the reasons that the process worked is that they did their best to keep this out of the media.

The bill was passed unanimously and signed into law.

I like that example a lot.

I also like that he has taught Constitutional law. He has a grounding and respect in the governing documents of our democracy.

He also has a perspective that comes from his unique biography. He speaks to our hearts because he is one of us.

He is living the American Dream. He knows the power of people when they gather together in a community. He is now trying to organize more than the neighborhoods in Chicago, he is trying to organize a nation.

He has my admiration, my respect, and my vote.

I pay as little attention as possible to the political arena in the hope that I can find a healthy balance between being peripherally aware of what’s going on without being sucked into the madness. I never intended to read this book and the only reason I picked it up in the first place was because it counted for a reading challenge I’m participating in through a group on this site.

Before starting the book, I had read some reviews written by other users and without fail, every single one reminded me of why I don’t enjoy politics. It would be one thing to read something like this, have an opinion and have that be the end of the story, but that is seldom the case. Because whenever you’re exposed to something that forces you to choose one side or the other, you make your decision and then run the risk of someone else choosing to loudly disagree with you and start an argument. Grrr, arguments.

Now the really fucked up thing about that is that I usually love arguments…or rather, I love to not back down from arguments, but where politics are involved, I have a tendency to shut down and just walk away from whoever has decided to oppose me (usually my husband—we have a lot of opposing political viewpoints, heh).

I thought the book was engaging. Obama is a deeply thoughtful individual and I was glad the book didn’t bore me (I normally find politics exceedingly dull). But aside from saying that, I don’t plan to write a proper “review” of this book or even explain what I liked about the book. It would be reasonable to assume that you either agree with him or don’t and as far as I’m concerned, there’s very little else to say past that without sparking an argument. More than likely my rating gives my opinion away, but whatever. I’m still not gonna go there.

I’m glad I read it—it was a stretch for me as a reader. But I’m not sure I’d willingly pick up another political interest book anytime in the near future. I prefer fiction.

I used to think that a liberal was simply someone whose background and education was deficient of the facts needed to understand the full ramifications of their left-leaning policies. For example, in a debate I once heard Maxine Waters (D-CA) incredulously ask "Why not?!" when told that the government can't afford free healthcare, free college, free daycare, etc. Because apart from the land of fairies and puppy-dog tails where the Congresswoman, if not grew up, at least spent most of her summers, there are limits to a nations' economic resources.

But I was surprised to find that Barack Obama is not ignorant of these principles. Instead, his book follows this basic model:

"Even though [history/economics/common sense] show us that [liberal policy] has resulted in [devastating consequence] in the past, I still feel we have a duty to the American people to implement [liberal policy]."

For example, he'll preface a call for more protections for organized labor with the acknowledgement that such protections actually hurt American business and make it more difficult for the U.S. to compete in a global economy.

From the outset, Obama admits that he doesn't have any answers to these dilemmas and that his book is not a political road-map. So while I disagree with where he ends up ideologically, I've got to hand it to him for being familiar with and able to articulate both sides of an issue, and holding onto his liberal idealism even as he stares the facts in the face. Or as he calls it, "The Audacity of Hope."

Nevertheless, this was one of the hardest books I ever read because it was just pages and pages of political rhetoric.

I rarely read memoirs, even more rarely read biographies, and rarest of all read books by political figures. But we've been going through a "thing" in America lately, and now there's about two thousand Democrats all clamoring to announce their candidacy for president in 2020, and the news keeps getting me down by reporting the fragmented half-sentences our current commander-in-chief seems to think are appropriate for the leader of a country to spout off on camera, and so I got nostalgic for a leader who could string together a complete thought and deliver it with dignity. I felt I needed a little presidential presidentiality, and so I finally picked this book up.

Typically I dog-ear the pages with quotes I'd like to include in these reviews. Well, I dog-eared five of the ten pages of the prologue alone. As expected, Obama's writing (OK, Obama's speechwriter's writing) is made up of lofty rhetoric, and it is beautifully crafted and elegantly coherent. This is the kind of pro-America talk that makes me proud rather than uncomfortable. And it's not empty patriotic rhetoric, either; there are valuable, concise, and important history lessons throughout on things like the origin and application of the filibuster, the differences between constitutional originalism and relativism, the record of civil rights from the 1960s through the early 2000s, and more, all presented with the key purpose of developing a more nuanced view of American government than the "Us vs. Them" mentality so prevalent now. He also gives a direct, day-to-day look at present-day government operations with succinct and simple (admittedly oversimplified) explanations of how we got to have the problems we've got today and how embracing and enacting the potential that America's robust system makes possible could move us forward from them.

It's strange to read this book today. It's essentially a stump speech, written in 2006 prior to Obama's run for U.S. President which we now know worked out nicely for him. And now it's 2019, a couple years after he's left office, and we've gone pretty much the other way from what he outlined here as his objective in politics. He preached the value of inclusion rather than division, but amazingly his term seemed to be insurmountably polarizing rather than unifying. Speaking personally, I thrived during the Obama presidency, and that was Reagan's famous litmus test for a President's success—are you better off today than you were four years ago? To be honest, Obama wasn't even as extreme as I'd have liked, being a Far Left Liberal Lefty myself, and I always viewed him as pretty centrist. But I still supported him and I genuinely don't understand all the hate that's directed his way. Despite the troubling executive branch expansion that seemed to ramp up under his time in office, I loved the guy for his personality, his charm, his sense of humor. And I genuinely believed that he believed he was making the country a better place and I was confident that he was mature, measured, and adult enough to wield power responsibly. Looking back from the present, it's simply astonishing how things have changed (or in many cases, not changed at all).

3.5 stars out of 5 - it's perhaps impossible to separate the message from the man, but the writing here (from a ghostwriter, I'm sure, though none has been officially named) is really quite good. It is a little long at times, with some chapters losing steam long before before they wrap up, but my only significant complaint is the repeatedly overused sentence structure of making a point listing two balanced extremes, i.e. "When we consider both sides—Example A and Example B, Example C and Example D—we can see etc. etc. etc." All told this would probably be best delivered as a shorter speech or a series of talks. Treat yourself to the audiobook if you're able; Obama's speaking voice really enhances it.

Written with the clarity of mind of someone, who undoubtedly thanks to their background, and curiosity to keep learning from the past, manages to keep up their integrity and hold on to their core values despite having been caught in the political machine for years. More importantly, who with their worldly and unprivileged upbringing, possesses the insight, humility, empathy and self-awareness to be able to view things from an outsider's perspective, beyond any social barriers - refusing to succumb to any resentfulness or entitlement.

An inspiring read.

______
Reading updates.

I've now finished this book, which I've been reviewing a chapter at a time. Before starting, I was concerned that it might lower my opinion of him. Many people have been rather dismissive, and perhaps that's why I didn't read it earlier. In fact, it has had the opposite effect. It's well thought out and convincing, and I respect him more. The one major criticism I have is that it's stylistically unimpressive; you can see that it would have benefited from another revision pass. He is however so insanely busy that I'm grateful he had time to write it at all. There certainly aren't many politicians at his level doing this kind of thing.

And, with that introduction, the main review...

****************************************************

I was given this book as a Christmas present by my 19 year old son. Kind of symbolic, I guess. I am about the same age as Obama, and over the last couple of years have become a huge supporter. I managed to be in the US around the election last November, and was delighted to find that it was legal for me to contribute to his campaign in terms of doing unpaid work. I helped organize a calling party in Sunnyvale (I was in charge of catering), and even got to make a couple of hundred phone calls to swing voters in Ohio. I have never been told to fuck off so many times in one afternoon, it was a fantastic experience. A few people were even nice to me! The most memorable one being the 87 year old great-grandmother with the broken hip, who said she was going to vote Obama together with two of her granddaughters, so that was three votes we could count on.

Obama is all about reestablishing trust in the political process - it's the very first thing he says in this book. I am writing this early in the second week of his presidency, and so far I can't fault him. He's doing everything he said he would do, as quickly as it can be done. Closing Gitmo, ending rendition and use of torture, funding third-world aid that includes contraception and abortion, sending a high-level representative to the Middle East, allowing states to set tougher emissions targets. Please, please continue with that.

--- Now a couple of chapters in. The style is not brilliant, but I think he is saying interesting and important things. So far, the central message has been that the US badly needs to make the political debate less polarized - people have to start trying to see similarities as well as differences, view their counterparts on the other side of the political divide as mistaken rather than evil, and above all listen. It comes across as very level-headed and positive, and he has good examples to support his argument, showing how both left- and right-wing people would find themselves more in agreement if they applied their principles consistently.

I was rather struck by the fact that, when he says that he doesn't think George W. Bush is a bad person, this comes across as a controversial claim. He seems to want to believe it. I can't quite make up my mind as to whether he really does, but I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I should try it too. It's definitely an interesting spiritual exercise.

--- Chapter 3, on the Constitution. I thought it was also pretty good. Obama knows this stuff in great depth - he's taught classes on constitutional law, and he has also, of course, had hands-on experience of the legislative process. He makes a strong, balanced case for the validity of the Constitution, taking plenty of time to look at the counter-arguments. In particular, he examines the ways in which the Constitution was used first to maintain slavery, and then to impede the progress of civil rights reforms. I find it impressive that he still believes in it. His basic argument is that it's a very carefully thought-out, flexible framework, which allows enough free play that it doesn't lock the US into one course, but rather allows Congress to adapt to changing circumstances, while still implementing the basic goals of the Founding Fathers.

It was interesting to compare Obama's analysis with Charlie Savage's book Takeover, which I read a few months ago. Savage's goal is to give an overall picture of the well-orchestrated attack that the Bush/Cheney administration mounted on the Constitution, which depended on narrow and highly debatable readings of a few key passages in the Federalist Papers, together with the establishment of precedents aimed at justifying a radical expansion of the Executive's powers. If you want to criticize Obama's take on the Constitution, remember that that's the current alternative. I know which one I feel more comfortable with.

--- Chapter 4, "Politics". The question this chapter addresses is, approximately: why are so many politicians cynical, lying phonies? I thought Obama did a good job of answering it. I would paraphrase his reply as follows. First, losing an election really hurts. If you win, you are an important person, and everyone treats you with great respect. If you lose, you are nobody.

Second, the difference between winning and losing depends very largely on having enough money to buy TV advertising. It's all about name recognition and getting your message across.

Third, by far the easiest way to raise money is to get tight with the special interest groups. They offer you an attractive deal: promise to do what they want, and they will quickly fix your financing. It's not easy to negotiate with them. Once you've signed, you're either in their pocket, or you cynically renege on your promises. Either way, you're compromised. Even worse, since money is all-important, and special interest groups and rich donors are way you get it, soon you're spending most of your time with them. So you rarely get to meet the people you're supposed to be representing.

He illustrates all these points simply and clearly with things taken from his own personal experience. He doesn't give himself credit for being particularly tough; he thinks he got a lot of lucky breaks, and says what they were. He's refreshingly low on bullshit.

I am really quite surprised at what a good book this has so far turned out to be!

--- Chapter 5, "Opportunity". It's the economy, stupid.

I don't understand why some people who reviewed this book complain that Obama says nothing about how he would address the problems the US is facing. At times, I almost thought he went into too much detail. He picks out three big things that he wants to focus on, in order to keep the US competitive in the global marketplace: education, research, and energy self-sufficiency.

I'll concentrate on research, since I know about that from personal experience, but a word first on energy: thank goodness, Obama is not, like most politicians, innumerate. He notes in a couple of sentences that the US uses 25% of the world's energy, but has only 3% of the world's fossil fuel resources, so further oil and gas exploration is not going to help much. Contrast his sensible, adult discussion of the issues with Sarah Palin's "Drill, baby, drill!" - one of the most moronic political sound-bites I've seen in recent years. It was unpleasant to see how many people bought this nonsense.

But going back to research, Obama points out that the US implicitly assumes that it will maintain a global superiority in science and technology, yet has been steadily cutting investment in basic research. In the 70s, more than a quarter of all research proposals were funded; now it's dropped to 10% or less. As he says, this means that scientists need to spend a large proportion of their time chasing the money that's still there, leaving them correspondingly fewer hours to do actual work. Another, less obvious, effect is that research focuses on a few "safe" directions, with speculative high-risk/high-gain ideas becoming almost impossible to fund; unfortunately, history shows that the risky ideas are the ones that really make a difference. Lee Smolin gives an excellent analysis of the problem in The Trouble with Physics.

I am one of many researchers who has given up, and moved elsewhere. I spent a lot of this decade working in the US, and most of the previous one working for a US company. I'm now in Switzerland, continuing to develop stuff that was largely paid for by the US taxpayer - if you're curious, you can read all about it in our 2006 book, Putting Linguistics into Speech Recognition. The flow of knowledge always used to be in the opposite direction. It feels kind of weird.

Obama says in this book that he wants to double investment in research. I wonder whether he is still going to have a chance of doing that, given the economic climate, but it's nice to see that he thinks it's important.

--- Chapter 6, "Faith". Something of a tightrope act, but it goes with the territory. I thought he acquitted himself well, and was never in serious danger of falling off. As in other chapters, he concentrates on trying to help all sides find common ground in this very difficult area. He clearly has great sympathy both with Christian and with secular thinkers, and is upfront about his connections with the Muslim world.

On the one hand, he explains why separation of church and state is so important for the US, and quietly but firmly distances himself from creationism. On the other, he explains why, despite being raised as a non-believer, he is now a Christian. He goes to some lengths to explain what kind of Christian he is: he is much more inspired by the Sermon on the Mount than by Genesis or Leviticus. One could say he's a Christian in the boring, old-fashioned sense of trying to follow the teachings of Christ.

At times, I have wondered whether he is just pretending to be Christian out of political expediency. After reading this chapter, I'm inclined to think I was wrong there. If you're a black American, you do have some pretty good reasons for being Christian. Obama isn't aggressive about it, but he reminds you that the Christian churches were a major force in driving through civil rights reforms; it probably wouldn't have happened without them. He wants to push through some major reforms of his own, and I hope that his faith will help him in the same way that it helped Martin Luther King.

--- Chapter 7, "Race". Another potential tightrope act, but here I thought Obama was extremely confident, in fact completely in control. Well, he has of course been thinking about these issues all his life, and they must have been one of the major reasons for him entering politics. I would say he had two main topics.

First, he wanted black Americans to try and steer a balanced course between two ways of thinking. On the one hand, it would be ridiculous not to agree that huge progress has been made over the last few decades. He has sensible arguments here, but his mere existence is of course the best one. On the other hand, there is a huge amount of work left to do. The situation for most blacks and Latinos is still terrible.

The brings him to the second main topic. The black subculture in the inner cities is out of control. The US has to do something about it, as a major priority: it's not in anyone's interests to have a de facto third world country within America's borders. There is a vicious circle of neglect, abuse, bad parenting, crime and unemployability that has to be broken into. Obama suggests that the best point to attack might be to focus on better education for black teenage girls, setting up incentives that will make it more attractive for them to finish school, and less attractive to get pregnant and start living on welfare.

He does a good job of angling the language so that it can appeal to both left and right - this is something that everyone needs to buy into. As he says, the right are upset that welfare has set up a self-perpetuating system where people don't have strong enough reasons to want to break out. That kind of status quo isn't to anyone's advantage.

--- Chapter 8, "The World Beyond our Borders". A very sensible look at the problems surrounding US foreign policy. He starts off with Indonesia, which he knows a lot about; he lived there for several years as a boy, and his mother continued to work there for a long time afterwards. As he says, the last 50 years of Indonesian history are a good way to see both the positive and the negative sides of the way the US treats the rest of the world. The US helped Indonesia gain freedom from the Dutch; after that, it supported an appalling dictatorship because it viewed it as an ally against Communism. More recently, the US has used economic power to force Indonesia to move its economic model towards free-market norms. This has angered many people, and made it easier for Islamic fundamentalists to make their voices heard.

He then backs off to give some broader historical perspective. The key problem, as he sees it, is that US foreign policy has been inconsistent, veering wildly between extremes. Sometimes, it is overly aggressive about trying to push its agenda, and upsets everyone. At other times, it withdraws into an isolationist stance, and then you get a different set of problems. World War II might well not have happened if the US had woken up earlier and recognized how dangerous Nazi Germany was.

His ideal is a compromise between these two positions. The US needs to engage actively with the rest of the world, but do so within a legal framework which it voluntarily submits to. The one effective way to spread democracy is to lead by example, and show that laws apply to everyone. Otherwise, the US opens itself up to the reasonable criticism that "democracy" is only another word for US interests. He thinks that the best example of this kind of policy was the Truman presidency after WW II, where the US was very effective in uniting the Western world against Communism.

Now that the Cold War is over, the US needs to rethink its role. He considers that Gulf War I was a success, as was the war in Afghanistan, which most of the world saw as legitimate self-defense. Iraq, on the other hand, was a ghastly mistake. He goes into some detail about exactly why he opposed it, and his judgment does indeed appear to have been spot on.

He believes that one of the major issues facing the US at the moment is the threat of rogue countries or terrorist groups getting hold of nuclear weapons. He wants to fight that in several ways. The most important are, first, winning over hearts and minds by showing that the US is really a friend of the third world rather than an enemy, and, second, building up effective international alliances based on mutual trust.

--- Chapter 9, "The Family". He finishes with the most personal chapter of the book, and tells you a fair amount about his own family. He comes across as a nice guy, and I'm convinced he has a very good marriage. Why? Because he's not afraid to admit that he and Michelle fight a good deal, and when they do he seems to try hard to see her side of the story, and do something about it. He's an excellent listener.

Another thing that comes across is that he really likes women. Not as sexual objects (though he's by no means indifferent to female charm), but as people. If Clinton was the first black president, then Obama is the first feminist president. It's not accidental; he was raised by his mother and grandmother, and he lives with his wife and his two daughters, whom he plainly adores. He's been surrounded by women all his life, and he's learned to understand what's important to them.

The chapter's not all personal: he also has stuff to say about policy issues which concern the family. Once again, what I am most impressed with is how damn sensible he is. He could easily have got bogged down on things like rape or gay marriage, which, though important, are not the most central issues. What he is fact most interested in is reducing the teen pregnancy rate, and providing better daycare for working mothers. I just can't fault him on this. I lived 10 years in Sweden, and good, affordable daycare makes such a difference to women that it's almost beyond belief.

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And now, Mr Obama: as I said, I loved your book. Please follow through on the program you describe here, and literally billions of people will thank you. But you already know that.

What a world where I can drive around in my car and have the former president read his book to me. It is a good account of his run for the senate and his early married life, very enjoyable.