Summary: A Promised Land: Barack Obama

By Quick Savant

This is a synopsis meant to complement as a study aid. The following is based on the original text of A Promised Land.

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • NPR • The Guardian • Marie Claire
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.

Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.

A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.

This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quick Savant
• Release date: Jun 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005345396

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Book preview

PREFACE

Obama begins his preface by recalling how he felt after his Presidency.

Bitter.

Trump’s win disturbed him because Trump projected diametrical opposition to all that Obama stood for in his long progressive career. Obama, nevertheless, claimed that the country changed into something better while he sat in the White House.

The Obamas relaxed for a month before planning for their immediate political future . A memoir to further promote his legacy and to reveal the economic, cultural, and political nuances from which arose challenges for decision-making seemed reasonable. An insider’s perspective on what happened with all those important national and global politicians and events should earn a large audience . Obama vowed to share what it might be like to be President, a position he considers not unlike most of our jobs in terms of daily responsibilities and emotions.

The Obamas always wished to enlist more of the world’s youth for the Democrat agenda.

He summarizes the health and economic ravages associated with the Chinese coronavirus and the social unrest centered on Black Lives Matter . The result: a divided nation full of mistrust, a disdain for norms, and the casting aside of standard procedures for safety.

Obama draws upon history to remind us that in a land where al ought l to be equal, Black slaves measured up as only three-fifths of a man, and after a veritable genocide, the Native Americans found themselves in impossible courtroom situations where all seemed to be stacked against them.

A review of American ideals comes next: Individual freedom, a form of self-government, equal opportunity, and equality for all.

Obama claims to confirm that our nation’s ideals fell second to acts of subjugation, conquest, racial castes, and the wickedness of greedy capitalism.

PART ONE: THE BET

CHAPTER 1

Obama fell in love with the West Colonnade and its brief presentation, for better or for worse, of the local, and sometimes extreme, weather. The Colonnade served as a preparatory waystation for the day’s immediate tasks. By sight and beauty of the Colonnade or by its illustrious history of Presidential strolls—Obama became invigorated in its presence.

His memory shifts to Oahu for his childhood, pointing out that politics did not dominate his family—except for the blatant Liberalism of his mother.

FAMILY

Obama’s father on record, a v isiting student to Hawaii , originally from Kenya, allegedly met Obama’s mother at the University of Hawaii. He showed up for a photoshoot with Barack when age ten and stayed a month-- the only period the two would interact. Barry would make a fine architect, his father told everyone , validating his mother’s opinion.

Somehow, Obama’s mother’s state of near indigence did not hamper him going off to the nearly all-White and very pricey Punahou college prep school. He hints that his grandmother, Toot , helped financially. Obama claims they sent him to a prep school for college but had not thought about him sending him to college. No one, he said, suggested politics as a career—that would not come until after his experiences in college.

Obama described himself at prep school age, rather than a potential world leader, as a drug-us er who showed more passion for his jump-shot, bodysurfing, and partying than studying.

Obama wants the reader to believe that he pondered questions about racism against Blacks globally back then in Hawaii, where there were very few Blacks. Hence, he had little interaction with any Black community. He expands this line into comments about class struggles between masses steeped in poverty, slaving away for the elite and wealthy.

Obama questioned his mother’s advice about being a straight shooter when he witnesses ideal citizens struggling, and drug-dealers, bullies, and those agreeable with cheating , prospe ring.

He thought he might have to go it alone through life and found solace in reading books—a habit he picked up from his mother who would ask him what he learned.

COLLEGE #1

Southern California’s Occidental College became injected with Obama’s presence in 1979. Obama claims he studied communist and revolutionary writers like Marcuse, Karl Marx, Brooks, Fanon, Woolf, and Foucault to converse intelligently with young Leftist women and a bisexual who constantly dressed in black. Obama admitted he adopted a form of Marxism for his worldview. His friends and associates formed a mix of Whites from lower-class backgrounds, inner-city Blacks, Latinos, Indians, Pakistanis, and Africans—people politically oppressed, he claimed.

Obama stipulates that he wanted no part in the double-speak and hypocrisy of big-money politics He gravitated towards social movements to manufacture change and suppor t the movement. With the adoption of communism, Obama now held purpose and an automatic support netwo rk , an exciting identity of the oppressed with a clear enemy— an elite replete with a history of slavery and Indian genocide.

Obama found himself coached, mentored, and molded into a political activist .

Obama morphed quickly into chatting about helping the movement. He buddied up with Marxist professors and students. He aimed to organize communities in the classic vein of a Marcuse or an Alinsky, who had taught Hillary Clinton. His mother agreed that rather than slamming others, lifting them up became a more efficient path to power. Obama could unite and urge people to act through communism—what he called real democracy.

COLLEGE #2

Columbia University attracted Obama in his sophomore year for a new start. Obama says he rarely bothered with college partie s and holed up in his apartments, seeing very few people. Obama wants us to believe that he thought about what made some social movements succeed over others. He admits his lofty ideals to change the world, but also his penchant