This collection of critical essays explores the life and writings of President Barack Obama. The individual essays, written by a diverse body of scholars, examine specific facets of Obama’s career – from personal, communal, national and international reactions to his presidential election; to his controversial contributions to the global conversation about race; his impact on popular culture and race relations; his literary, political and philosophical visions; his attitude toward the American constitution; his enactment of new legislation; to the manner in which he attempts to influence American public policy; and to the implications his presidency holds for Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. Ranging far beyond the presentation of personal opinions about the Obama Administration, these essays offer scholarly perspectives on Obama’s two books, and on his multidimensional efforts to remove the obstacles to equality of opportunity in the United States. They also explore Obama’s potential for re-shaping the American social and cultural terrain and, by extension, for re-vitalizing the American Dream. This book should be of interest to scholars of political science, literature, history, philosophy, religion and psycho-culture as well as to the general reading public.

A collection of critical essays about President Barack Obama. Unlike previous books about Obama, this is a current study. Written by a diverse group of writers, scholars, poets and artists, with pictures, essays and poems.

Written 15 years before his rise to the presidency, Barack Obama's 1994 'Dreams from My Father' is an important literary and cultural contribution to the national conversation. This book examines significant aspects of the text both in relation to the African American literary tradition and to the context of the relevant historical and cultural productions that inform it.

Edited by internationally recognised scholar Femi Ojo-Ade, this volume brings together a mixture of young intellectuals and seasoned scholars from Africa and its diaspora to address various implications of the Obama phenomenon, all from an Afro-oriented perspective. Far from being a neologism coined from what some would dismiss as Obama's political jingoism, The Obama Phenomenon: Change We Can is an affirmation of potential power, a call-out to people of all races and cultures to work together for the just cause of human progress.

In the early twenty-first century, race still occupies a dominant role in American politics. Despite this truism, presidential candidate Barack Obama was uniquely poised to transcend both race and party as the first African American to have a realistic chance of winning the presidency. Previous contenders running in the traditional mode of the Civil Rights Movement based their appeal primarily on African American voters. Obama, on the other hand, ran a deracialized campaign in an effort to appeal to voters of different backgrounds and political parties. Clayton examines how race in American politics has changed over time and offers an explanation for why Obama’s candidacy offers a different roadmap for the future. The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama provides students of politics, inside and outside of the classroom, a unique opportunity to explore the institutional and structural challenges an African American faces in becoming the president of the United States. This guide to major issues in Black politics and the ins and outs of the 2008 campaign provides the necessary contours for understanding how the highest elected African American official won office.

"Barack Obama's election as the first African American president seemed to usher in a new era, and he took office in 2009 with great expectations. But by his second term, Republicans controlled Congress, and, after the 2016 presidential election, Obama's legacy and the health of the Democratic Party itself appeared in doubt. In The Presidency of Barack Obama, Julian Zelizer gathers leading American historians to put President Obama and his administration into political and historical context. These writers offer strikingly original assessments of the big issues that shaped the Obama years, including the conservative backlash, race, the financial crisis, health care, crime, drugs, counterterrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan, the environment, immigration, education, gay rights, and urban policy. Together, these essays suggest that Obama's central paradox is that, despite effective policymaking, he failed to receive credit for his many achievements and wasn't a party builder. Provocatively, they ask why Obama didn't unite Democrats and progressive activists to fight the conservative counter-tide as it grew stronger." -- Publisher's description

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER | NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE ECONOMIST, THE GUARDIAN The riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making-a record-breaking, critically-acclaimed no.1 bestseller, now out in paperback'Gorgeously written, humorous, compelling, life affirming' Justin Webb, Mail on[Bokinfo].