Originally Posted – May 14, 2017
On Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
President Barack Obama’s history may not be well-known to most people. Is he from Hawaii or Chicago? What is his connection to Kansas, Kenya, and Indonesia? Most interestingly, what life experiences shaped the 44th President of the United States?
Dreams from My Father was written after Obama’s graduation from Harvard Law school in 1991 and originally published in the summer of 1995 just months before his mother’s early death. Dreams from My Father exposes who the man Barrack Obama Jr. was before coming into senatorial and presidential power. In Dreams from My Father, President Obama reflects on racism, family, religion, politics, poverty, and community.
He grows up in Hawaii in the absence of his biological father and in Indonesia in the presence of his step-father. He attends school in New York before working as a community organizer in Chicago. And he visits Kenya to discover his paternal roots.
Well-performed and well-paced, the audiobook may lose one’s attention during some in-detail recounts of personal history or genealogy, but for the most part the narrative is concise with multiple compelling statements that reveal the balanced and diplomatic prowess of the 44th President’s worldview.
Regardless of one’s political opinions, this autobiographical account from the 44th President and 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner is well worth a listen for the historical context and provoking questions that it provides to the listener.
Sources:
Obama, B. (2004). Dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance. First Broadway paperbacks edition. New York, Broadway Paperbacks.
Obama, B. (2005). Dreams from my father. [New York, N.Y.], Random House Audio.
Obama, B. (2020). A Promised Land. Penguin Books.
Obama, M. (2021). Becoming. Crown trade paperback edition. New York, Crown.
Deliberating Truth 