I started this book right after completing Michelle Obama’s book “Becoming”. It helps maintain the relevancy of the subject to the White House. Reading “A Promised Land” left like reading a collection of newspaper articles related to Barack Obama’s presidency. Also with a lot of side commentary as well. The book contains a lot of historical details/facts and accounts of how and why he made those decisions.
I started actively monitoring the global news from 2014, so most of the knowledge here was new to me, except obviously the Financial Crisis and Middle East wars. Obama’s involvement in support of Egypts Pro Democracy protests and his negotiations during the Climate change summits were few of the exciting stories in the book. The book also gives some glimpse of US politics and Global Politics to some extent. Obama shows us how it is difficult to get things done is democracy.
The book gave the glimpse into the life of the US president or as US media proclaims “Leader of the Free World” lives and operates. It’s also a pretty long book and this is just the volume 1 of the 2 part series.
The Book gives complete glimpse into Obama’s life till somewhere near his end of 1st presidential term. The second volume will take it from there. He also explains his philosophical ideas in life, where he decided not to become a corporate lawyer after graduating from Harvard Law, but instead worked on building a community and do work that benefits the society.
He also talked about his visit to India and his opinions of the Indian politicians, especially Dr. Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. He talked openly on what he saw in the political scene in India. Some of that content was not to the likes of Indian politicians especially those of Congress political party.
He also talks about the American culture, the good and the bad things. Discussions on race and equality, and his honest views and opinions on the same.
The book does contain lot of historical facts available in public along with the perspective of Obama as he created history. I enjoyed reading his book and I will be eagerly waiting for the second part of the series.