I was not expecting this. It's easy to be prejudiced toward presidential memoirs and biographies. Politicians are uniquely long-winded, self-serving and capable of distorting reality. But Obama's memoir, A Promised Land, is as refreshing as you can expect a sweeping presidential memoir to be. Sure, there is a lot of the fluff I did expect - endless lists of campaign employees and staff who need to be named and liturgy about how America is still the land of freedom in spite of its racial divides - but it's easy enough to skip those paragraphs and focus on what makes A Promised Land good.
As far as I can tell, Obama wrote most of A Promised Land himself. Most celebrity memoirs are written by ghost writers, but Obama wrote two books before his presidency - Dreams from my Father and The Audacity of Hope, neither of which I'll ever read - which give his post-presidential releases more credibility. The very positive surprise is that he is a skilled writer who expresses himself clearly without dumbing down topics. Many passages are beautiful and thoughtful. Obama describes the American political landscape in a way that is approachable enough for outsiders but detailed enough for veterans. Clarity of thought isn't usually something you associate with politicians.
The beginning of his presidency is a standout part of the book. The Republican Party was already well on its way to becoming the disingenuous, anti-intellectual cesspool it is today, but not all the top republican politicians were converts yet. Obama's idealism and somewhat foolhardy bridge building lurched the Republican party further right and further down the road it's on today. He inherited a country in economic turmoil - his campaign coincided with the scarring financial collapse in 2008 - and had to quickly come up with a rescue plan. Though it seemed adventurous at the time, the TARP program effectively ended the Great Recession in the United States, while the EU, who opted for austerity, took years longer to recover. Much of the response has stood the test of time.
Obama's literary voice reminded me of Bruce Springsteen's memoir. Springsteen is less eloquent and more exuberant in his delivery, but the two men have surprisingly much in common. Both had absentee fathers - literally in Obama's case and psychologically in Springsteen's - and both opted for black and white pictures for their hardcovers. Both look thoughtful in those photos, and simultaneously young and road worn. Springsteen's ability to connect with a crowd and intuit the fears of his generation is matched by Obama's need to connect with humans everywhere he goes. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the two had released a joint podcast. I haven't listened to it yet, but a headline put it well: "The Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama Podcast Is Just Two Guys Talking About Hope".
Another thing I didn't expect; A Promised Land is not the definitive account of Obama's presidency. It tracks his life from Honolulu to Chicago to the White House. But it ends with the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 and not the end of his second terms, as I thought. It's a brick of a book, and hard to hold up in bed, so it's surprising that it only covers half of what I wanted to read about. A second volume is sure to follow, but it is somewhat annoying to wade through more than a thousand pages of political back and forth to understand Obama's monumental presidency.