The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama

Barack Obama and the trajectory of his political life fascinates so many people, Americans as well as others all over the world. The Bridge satisfies our hunger and curiosity to understand the man in the context of the times. It is exquisitely written (reads more like a good novel than a typical biography),thoroughly researched and takes a perceptive, balanced journalistic view of Obama's life and the times that brought our country to elect the first Black President. Remnick's account of the history of race relations in the US is a fascinating lesson in history and is integral to Obama's story. This is a book that any and all intelligent readers will devour.

You would have to be living under a rock, as they say, not to have noticed New Yorker editor David Remnick making the rounds of the news-talk shows the last few weeks in support of his new book, `The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama.' Remnick has appeared on virtually every show and newspaper column and seemingly for good reason. For as much as there are more Obama books on the market than any first year president in recent memory, `The Bridge' stands out as the one book, save Obama's own `Dreams of My Father,' that does a deep dive into the political past of the nation's first African-American president and the decisions, factors and historical touchstones that led him to the top job. In Remnick's 656-page volume, the author painstakingly goes back and reassembles the now-president's life in a way that is both personal and political. Remnick portrays the story of a rapid, albeit sometimes random, journey from student life in Hawaii, to his studies at Occidental and Harvard, through the famed community organizing era and ultimately to elected positions in the Illinois state legislature, the U.S. Senate and on to the presidency. At various points in the book, the author is not afraid to point out some of Obama's lackluster moments (i.e. his sometimes idle days both at the Davis Miner law firm and later in the Illinois State Senate, his drubbing in his first congressional run, etc.) while continuing to focus on the search for identity that Obama may have lacked in the early years of his youth. Unlike many of the books on the market, Remnick is not obsessed with the historic presidential part of the story (that is saved for the last quarter of the book) but rather looks closely at Obama's student years, his time at Harvard including his race for and leadership of the Harvard Law Review, his Chicago community alliances (from Bill Ayers to Chicago Mayor Harold Washington) and much of his work in the Illinois State Senate before coming to Washington. Throughout the book, Remnick is front-of-mind conscious as to how race affected Obama's journey with repeated references to everyone from MLK to John Lewis to Shirley Chisholm. Remnick's focus on Obama's race and the issues it elicits, sometimes seems to be in fact, the focal point of the book. (Even the title `The Bridge' of course, has a double meaning, referring both to Obama as well as a reference to the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama that is often seen as the frontline of the battle for racial equality in March of 1965.) Besides the voluminous interviews and depth of research involved, the strength of Remnick's book relies on both it's rather unvarnished view of the Obama history as well as it's telling of the story from the point of view of many of those closest to the action. The main criticism that seems to be leveled at the book is it's dryness; it's `court-reporter' style - a critique we would certainly not dispute. Of course, there will be many books to come on the first Afri

"This is how it began, the telling of a story that changed America." David Remnick begins the story not in Honolulu or Kenya or Kansas, but in Selma, the mid-sized Alabama city in which the civil rights generation staged an epochal march for voting rights on "Bloody Sunday" in 1965. The book seeks not only to provide new details of Barack Obama's early life but to set that life in the context of the movement that made his rise possible. The result is a thoughtful, balanced, and serious work: a careful study of how an adrift teenager came into his own; a vivid rendering of the ambition that sparked his political success; and an incisive meditation on the historical significance of his victory. Race is the prism through which Remnick tells the story, an artful narrative choice not only because of its importance in understanding Obama's appeal but because race is key to how Obama understands himself. Obama's identity is "both provided and chosen," Remnick observes. "He pursued it, learned it...had to claim that identity after willful study, observation, even presumption." Remnick, relying on extensive research, a close reading of Obama's own best-selling texts, and hundreds of interviews, provides the most substantive look at Obama in his wilderness years that I have read. The set shifts from Honolulu to Jakarta, Los Angeles to New York, Chicago to Cambridge to Kenya. The conversations with classmates and roommates and professors, many of whom kept silent during the election season, add a fascinating touch. The interviews also confirmed, in absorbing detail, the extent of Obama's ambition and cunning once he had resolved his inner conflict and settled on a political career. In one sense this is no surprise in any candidate who runs for the presidency. (Lincoln, his law partner William Herndon reflected, possessed an ambition of such force that it was "a little engine that knew no rest.") It is nonetheless arresting to read that, from the time he was at Harvard Law School, Obama wanted to be president "like a waking dream," as one contemporary noted, and set aside the opportunity for a Supreme Court clerkship after law school so that he could establish roots in Chicago. The suburbs bore him, he says, and he adds that if he ever were to have to commute to an office job every day he would consider his life a "nightmare." Even after his election to the United States Senate, he "hated being a senator," David Axelrod tells Remnick, and of course he did not stay in the Senate for long. The picture of that ambition that Remnick draws is a balanced one. Obama can be guilty of "romantic overreach" in his speeches, Remnick writes, and his "novelistic contrivances can sometimes feel strained." His second book, The Audacity of Hope, was "purposefully, cautiously political...a shrewd candidate's book." And Obama's political and personal opponents are given voice in this book. (One former Chicago ally tells Remnick that Obama is an "arrogant, self-absorbed,

Despite the fact that President Obama might be the best known living human, only two general categories of books have previously appeared about him. The first type has been shoddily whipped together by journalists and is usually little more than a 300 page magazine article providing the general outline of the election. While entertaining, the de minimus research means that beyond one or two added details (probably about Reille Hunter), these works are usually little more than unoriginal and unsourced recapitulations of a tale that has been told hundreds of times on the front pages of every newspaper in the country. The other sort has been written by supporters or opponents of Obama; the strong bias of these works usually makes them appealing only to close-minded partisans. Dreams From My Father, while a more revealing book than most, clearly falls into the category of a pro-Obama work. While it certainly included many of the warts of the President's early life, the ones that found their way into the story were usually carefully chosen anecdotes designed to shape the narrative he has sold to the public. The Bridge is the first book that moves beyond this and can be called a "history." It relies heavily on Dreams, but doesn't take what was written as gospel. Scores of interviews with former classmates or colleagues are included, corroborating or refuting the tales that were told in this memoir. When the Robert Caros and Edmund Morrises of the next century write the "defining" Obama biographies, these primary sources will be heavily cited. This work does a fantastic job of pointing out Obama's key role in American civil rights history while still maintaining a reasonable air of detachment as to the man and his policies. No matter what your politics are, you should be able to get something from this. Several conservatives have written one sentence reviews attacking the book simply because it is about an individual they despise; they should be aware that this is the most balanced book that has yet to be written about this age in American history. If you want to read only books written on people you lionize, there are plenty of stories about George Washington and his cherry tree; if you want to read a balanced, well-researched work on a major historical figure, I'd highly recommend The Bridge.

Ideal for Obama fans, history buffs (especially the history of civil rights) and political junkies, The Bridge tells the story about how Barack Obama became the link from the past to the future. In a literal sense, the bridge is the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, site of the "Bloody Sunday" march in 1965. In a more spiritual sense, Obama is the bridge himself. Author David Remnick's book gives Obama's political rise context, by analyzing the setting in which his rise occurred. Examined in vivid detail: the civil rights battles in the south before he was born; the volatile mix of race and politics in Chicago, where Obama first ran for office; his successes and failures in the Illinois State Senate; skirmishes with older black politicians; and the bitter presidential campaign--in particular the primary fight against Hillary Clinton. Included are many quotes from Obama's friends, family and associates, and powerful recollections of events from his life. A childhood classmate remembers an incident when Obama's skin was deemed too "dirty" to touch a draw sheet before a tennis tournament: "the implication was absolutely clear: Barry's hands weren't grubby; the message was that his darker skin would somehow soil the draw." Obama's former college roommate recalls the party-time atmosphere in the dorm, even listing the some of the music pounding out of the future chief executive's room: the B-52s, Talking Heads, Bob Marley, Billie Holiday. Remnick gives indelible accounts of Obama's wife Michelle--including her insistence that he do his share of grocery shopping and car-pool duties--and his closely fought duel with Hillary Clinton over the nomination. Richly detailed and full of life, The Bridge will not disappoint. Included: 16 pages of photos, some color, some black and white historical images. Here's the chapter list: Prologue: The Joshua Generation Part One 1. A Complex Fate 2. Surface and Undertow 3. Nobody Knows My Name Part Two 4. Black Metroplex 5. Ambition 6. A Narrative of Ascent Part Three 7. Somebody Nobody Sent 8. Black Enough 9. The Wilderness Campaign 10. Reconstruction 11. A Righteous Wind Part Four 12. A Slight Madness 13. The Sleeping Giant 14. In the Racial Funhouse 15. The Book of Jeremiah Part Five 16. "How Long? Not Long" 17. To the White House Epilogue