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Barack Obama: The Story Paperback – Illustrated, January 15, 2013

by David Maraniss (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 279 ratings
Editors' pick Best Biographies & Memoirs
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The groundbreaking multigenerational biography, a richly textured account of President Obama and the forces that shaped him and sustain him, from Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, political commentator, and acclaimed biographer David Maraniss.

In Barack Obama: The Story, David Maraniss has written a deeply reported generational biography teeming with fresh insights and revealing information, a masterly narrative drawn from hundreds of interviews, including with President Obama in the Oval Office, and a trove of letters, journals, diaries, and other documents.

The book unfolds in the small towns of Kansas and the remote villages of western Kenya, following the personal struggles of Obama’s white and black ancestors through the swirl of the twentieth century. It is a roots story on a global scale, a saga of constant movement, frustration and accomplishment, strong women and weak men, hopes lost and deferred, people leaving and being left. Disparate family threads converge in the climactic chapters as Obama reaches adulthood and travels from Honolulu to Los Angeles to New York to Chicago, trying to make sense of his past, establish his own identity, and prepare for his political future.

Barack Obama: The Story chronicles as never before the forces that shaped the first black president of the United States and explains why he thinks and acts as he does. Much like the author’s classic study of Bill Clinton, First in His Class, this promises to become a seminal book that will redefine a president.
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  1. Print length
    672 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    January 15, 2013
  4. Dimensions
    6.13 x 1.8 x 9.25 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    9781439160411
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1439160411
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is a revelatory book . . . which will certainly shape our understanding of President Obama’s strengths, weaknesses and inscrutabilities. Every few pages Maraniss offers a factual nugget that changes or enlarges the prevailing lore.” ― The New York Times

“[This] book is full of riveting stories, shrewd observations, and fascinating details.” ― The New Yorker

“Barack Obama is biography at its best. A prodigiously researched and exquisitely written multigenerational account…. With subtlety and sophistication, Maraniss captures and conveys Obama's sensibilities and sensitivities.” ― San Francisco Chronicle

“Remarkable . . . Maraniss captures Obama’s search for purpose and the kindling of his ambition with an intimacy unlike that of other biographers—including Obama….[The book] offers the rawest account of his early life and a deeper understanding of his origins. Three and a half years and countless publications after Obama’s Inauguration, that is a remarkable feat.” ― Time

“Barack Obama is a work of monumental ambition. …Maraniss’ exhaustive research and lucid writing expands exponentially our knowledge of the president’s history.” ― Chicago Tribune

“There's far more to this revealing and deeply reported coming-of-age story, a term usually applied to novels….[It] reads like a novel filled with stories too unlikely for fiction . . . which makes it the best kind of political biography.” ― USA Today

“Impeccably researched…. Stunning in its detail… Maraniss… gets out of the way and lets his first-rate reporting tell the story. . . . It is like watching a magician at work” ― Milwaukee Journal Sentinal

About the Author

David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and was a finalist three other times. Among his bestselling books are biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Roberto Clemente, and Vince Lombardi, and a trilogy about the 1960s—Rome 1960; Once in a Great City (winner of the RFK Book Prize); and They Marched into Sunlight (winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and Pulitzer Finalist in History).

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1439160414
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (January 15, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 672 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781439160411
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1439160411
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.7 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 1.8 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 279 ratings

About the author

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David Maraniss

David Maraniss

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David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post. He is the winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and has been a Pulitzer finalist two other times for his journalism and again for They Marched Into Sunlight, a book about Vietnam and the sixties. The author also of bestselling works on Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi, and Roberto Clemente, Maraniss is a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He and his wife, Linda, live in Washington, DC, and Madison, Wisconsin.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
279 global ratings
Maraniss nails it ... again
5 Stars
Maraniss nails it ... again
I have been a fan of David Maraniss's work since I read his book about Vince Lombardi. No one digs deeper for the facts and background.With BARACK OBAMA: THE STORY he has gone after his most provocative subject, Obama, for which he should receive the literary version of the Super Bowl trophy and comes out a big winner. One hundred pages into this, his most recent, and I can't stop reading. Maraniss, as usual, gets inside the head of his subjects in a way that makes them spring off the printed pages. To use the title of a great CBS program: YOU ARE THERE. This is an unstoppable read, especially with the Chum Gang adventures of the young Obama at Punaho. There is one review here that is almost as long as THE STORY itself. I have one word for this book: Shaka!
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Top reviews from the United States

Mike
5.0 out of 5 stars David Maraniss: An historian par excellence
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2012
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If you enjoy learning from well-researched biographies written by authors who are both respected historians and recognized word masters, "Barack Obama: The Story" by David Maraniss is just the book for you. With a talent for identifying and crystalizing societal events, Maraniss is more than a gifted wordsmith. He is a teacher who distills random and unconnected historical events.

"Barack Obama" may be Maraniss' best book to date. Choosing the best among his previous biographies (about Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi, and Roberto Clemente and histories (about the Vietnam War and the Rome Olympics) is like selecting a favorite child in a large family.

Maraniss is balanced and fair-minded. He sticks to the facts. And facts that Maraniss unearthed abound in this 641-page book. In his introduction, Maraniss candidly admits that the book is not a traditional biography. Obama does noy appear until page 165 when he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu. The book ends when Obama is just 27 years old, about to enter Harvard Law School.

For those who seek to understand Obama, Maraniss sets forth a recurrent theme -- a determination to avoid life's traps as a salient fact that shapes Obama's personality. Maraniss provides a useful metaphor, Obama is a moviegoer, someone who observes and is cautious about decision making. In the book's introduction, Maraniss candidly admits his own underlying philosophy: "life is chaotic, a jumble of accidents, ambitions, misconceptions, bold intentions, lazy happenstances, and unintended consequences." Yet, "there are connections that illuninate our world, revealing its endless mystery and wonder." "Barack Obama: The Story" illuminates and connects. From chaos and unintended consequences, Maraniss adds shape and meaning to the early life of the current President of the United States. The reader learns about a man we hardly know.

Sadly, for a final curtain call about Barack Obama, readers will have to await years (or decades) for a second book. I hope Maraniss writes that book. I cannot wait for its publication. In the meantime, readers of "The Story" will gain numerous insights -- some quite surprising for us political junkees -- into President Obama, in the process learn about Kenya, Kansas, colonialism, and the World War II generation, and after reading the final page, reap benefits from the work of a great historian/writer. I highly recommend this book.
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Z
5.0 out of 5 stars The truest account of the forces that shaped Obama
Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2012
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This book reminds me in a way of Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece, "All the King's Men." WIth its gripping writing, color, characters and narrative, David Maraniss' "Barack Obama: The Story" feels like a great American novel.

Yet it is a meticulously researched, journalistic and true account of the forces that shaped our president's life. It begins decades before Obama was born and ends when he is still in his 20s. At a time of fleeting accounts of political figures, this book is for history.

Individual chapters could stand on their own as masterful tales of shifting politics and culture in places like Kansas, Kenya, Hawaii and Chicago in the years preceding and following Obama's birth. But they are all tied together by Obama's journey, and you find yourself moving through time and place, seeing it all through Obama's eyes -- as well as those of his family, friends, romantic partners.

This isn't an anti- or pro-Obama book. Maraniss does not praise or criticize the president. He doesn't throw bombshells. Nor does he need to. Rather, Maraniss has found every fact he can about Obama's history, pieced them together in a story that finds drama in Obama as a regular human being struggling with the question of who he is.

In short, Maraniss has pulled back every layer of artificiality about Obama's past -- promulgated by both Republicans and Democrats -- and written the truest account of the young life that shaped today's president.
102 people found this helpful
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Joseph Palen
4.0 out of 5 stars Early Life of an Unusual Man
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2012
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This is a very well researched story of the young Barack Obama, his father, Kenyon Barack Obama Sr. (whose brilliance was compromised by arrogance and alcohol), his mother Anne, (who gave him the genes of an explorer of life, as an escapee from Kansas ), and the before-Michelle women in his life (notably, all white). It not only digs much deeper into his early life than Obama's "Dreams from My Father", it also spends a lot of time (too much I think) correcting and explaining the 1995 autobiography, which was a work of art, but by Obama's own admission played fast and loose with timelines and characters. The theme of the book is how, through a first class education, life experiences in Hawaii, Indonesia, Kenya, California, New York, and Chicago, Barack Obama became the person he is today, with the brilliance and ambition of his father, and the compassion infused fix-the-world-spirit of his mother.

Obama's mother's Midwest roots did not come from exactly an ideal white picket fence family, and included a grandmother who committed suicide, a father who was a big talker, but could not hold a job, and a mother who worked - something unheard of in Kansas, until WW II made it more necessary and then respectable. Moving many times for father to find a new job, and gradually moving west, they all ended up in Hawaii where Obama's mother briefly married his father from Kenya and bore him, then married an Indonesian and moved with Barack to Jakarta. Barack later went back to school in Hawaii, and on from there to Occidental, Columbia, and eventually to Harvard, where his father also studied.

His Father from Kenya was recognized by everyone he knew as exceptionally brilliant, but somewhat arrogant and difficult to deal with. He did have great charisma especially with women and attracted many women, several of them white, providing Barack Obama, his only namesake, with many half brothers and sisters. Although Barack Sr. did become an important man in the government of Kenya, he never achieved his full potential because of drinking and womanizing, and eventually was killed in a single car accident.

It was made clear in the book that Barack Obama Sr. was never a Moslem, even though his father was a nominal one, and Obama's mother was essentially an atheist, while respecting all religions and committed to helping others through such activities as her job with Ford Foundation. Obama came to the Christian religion after working with Black ministers in Chicago between his graduation from Columbia and his enrolling in Harvard.

This is mostly a 5 star book. However, there were a few disappointments. The main one was the abrupt end of the book at the point where Obama, after visiting Kenya left his Chicago organizing job to enter Harvard, with only a brief mention of two very important portions of his life - his mother's untimely death, and his courtship and winning of Michelle (after having relationships with three white women during his college years). Another weak point, in my opinion was the long and detailed account of Obama's second serious girl friend during his Columbia days - this apparently due mostly to the fact that the author had access to her journal. Also it was a little disconcerting for the author to concentrate so much space on how his account of Barack's life differs from Barack's own account, which Obama admitted contained composite characters and modified timelines for the purpose of better story flow.

That said, I learned a lot about many things in reading this well researched book, and highly recommend it to all who want to know more about this unusual man, the first Black President of the United States.
34 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Rakesh Gupta
5.0 out of 5 stars Painstaking research of oozing with empathy
Reviewed in India on January 14, 2017
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Extensively And painstakingly written text on American Society on issues and trends even if remotely associated with Unparalleled President Barak Obama.
One person found this helpful
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Z
5.0 out of 5 stars A life of a boring poetic man
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 5, 2016
Verified Purchase
Barack Obama story

A life of a boring poetic man

Barack Obama is a phenomenon. Charismatic, intelligent, and bold. I have read several books about him including his own, yet none goes into the depth of interviewing Obama's colleagues in his early years like this book. This book goes from his great grandfather on both sides to just before he entered Harvard.

I have to admit though Obama in his early years was boring, uninteresting, and showed very little promise to become President. 100 percent of his colleagues never believed he would be president or even that high in office. I am contrasting him to Bill Clinton who ran for high school president every year and was involved in politics and political campaign since he was a child drawing on the drive for attention and importance office gave him.

Bill Clinton is a fair comparison to Obama, both of whom never really knew their birth fathers, both rejected by their adopted father, both of whom were known to be intelligent. Bill was a man who drove in fifth gear thoughout his life. Obama only hit that speed much later on in his life and was cruising at 3rd gear in this book.

The book taught me that Obama became eloquent due to his investment of his mother in his English and his education. He actually wanted to be a writer early on which has convinced me that he did indeed write most of of Dreams from my father. It gave me some insight into the man who defeated the Clintons as their own game. He was cool and collected since childhood, he had great command of the language, and he had relatively good social intelligence.

I would recommend this book to people who want to understand how early politicians can be basically normal people but can with good social intelligence and character of patience be able to achieve something higher in life as compared to the used car salesman that Clinton is.

In this book you will meet Obama childhood friend, his Pakistani close college friends, two of his girlfriends, and more.

But he is boring to the point the author spent more time telling you stories about Obama dad and Obama mother/parents than he does about Obama. I was actually relieved when Obama dad died as the author could no longer fill the pages about the Kenya revolution and other non related stories.

I got the book but felt so uninterested by the story that I bought the audio book which is read by the author, to overcome the humps and tangents in the story . I would recommend all to get the audio book which is read by the author himself.
3 people found this helpful
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susanai
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in Australia on May 18, 2015
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Was fine.
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S.J.East
5.0 out of 5 stars Growing up Globally
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 25, 2013
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This is a lengthy and absorbing book. It is an honest and objective attempt to give a factual and detailed account of the influences that formed the character of Barack Obama. It explores the families histories of both his parents in Kansas and Kenya. It demonstrates the surprisingly random way these two histories touched on each other. We then follow the influences in Obama's childhood life from Hawaii to Indonesia and back to Hawaii, leaving his mother behind. We continue through his colege life and onto to his subsequent career. The detail is at times amazing. The author has attempted to reach and speak to as many people as he can who crossed Obama's path in life. He makes every attempt to be fair by demonstrationing conflicting recollections and treats everyone with human respect. The book left me a better educated human being with a greater insight in what is is like to be a multicultural human being raised in a multicultural world.
4 people found this helpful
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Miss J. Glover
4.0 out of 5 stars very interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2013
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Gives an interesting perspective on the life of the US president. I haven't finished it yet to see the conclusions. But looking at the issues in both Kenya and the US gives good insight into what was happening at these times. I have lived through a lot of this time so it is good to know more than what was reported on media at-the time. However I do feel that there is rather an anti British bias with insufficient attention to the rank racial prejudice and open apartheid that was present in the US in the 1950s and 60s
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