'A Promised Land' review: The audacity of Hope

on Jun 08, 2021

“But so long as I stayed true to God and to doing what was right, I too had nothing to fear,” writes Obama in the first part of his memoir on his presidency, A Promised Land.

The 44th President of the U.S. has effortlessly stated in this presidential memoir, that even after the limitations that he faced he stayed true to himself and did the right thing.

Gideon Rose, former editor of Foreign Affairs, called Obama in a 2015 essay “an ideological liberal with a conservative temperament”.

This memoir starts with a summary of his early years, and then goes into the detailed stories of his political career. He explains how he decided to stand for his first election and how he won. He also shared about the journey of his relationship with Michelle from being tense to sweet.

As Obama is quite open in letting the reader know what he really thinks about other leaders, both American and foreign. he wrote about Vladimir Putin of Russia that he was “like a ward boss, except with nukes and a UN Security Council veto.” and that Rahul Gandhi has “a nervous, unformed quality about him, as if he were a student who’d done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject.”

Usually, memoirs of political leaders are focused on policies and politics and most of the time readers would also want to read about the details of historical events. He is a gifted writer and not a regular leader. He's not just sharing dull stories of his political career but also his personal and public life and the things he believed in.

He shared about the journey from the family to politics, from love to diplomacy and trust to judgments effortlessly in his memoir.

Obama has not included some of the foreign policy challenges he faced such as the Iran nuclear programme , the Arab street protests, Syrian civil war and disastrous Libya war but he has promised that he will include it in the sequel. But Obama has shared his achievements such as the Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act. To be sure, these were achieved despite a Republican Party against his presidency.

The book consisted of 700 pages and the reason being that he did a lot during his presidency and from sharing the history of the problem, describing it, sharing ways to fix the problem, to finally fixing it, Obama did not shy away from talking about it.

The best thing about the book is how captivating it is. Obama showed how self aware he is of his flaws as well as he is about his talents. His constant desire to improve is inspiring and how humble he is as a person.