Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama

(Paperback)

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The definitive account of Barack Obamas life before he became the 44th president of the United States the formative years, confluence of forces, and influential figures who helped shaped an extraordinary leader and his rise from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the Cross.
Barack Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention instantly catapulted the little-known state senator from Illinois into the national spotlight. Three months later, Obama would win election to the U.S. Senate; four years later he would make history as Americas first black president. Now, at the end of his second presidential term, David J. Garrow delivers the most compelling and comprehensive Obama biography as epic in vision and rigorous in detail as Robert Caros The Power Broker.

Moving around the globe, from Hawaii to Indonesia to the American Northeast and Midwest, Rising Star meticulously unpacks Obamas life, from his tumultuous upbringing in Honolulu and Jakarta, to his formative time as a community organizer on Chicagos South Side, working in some of the roughest neighborhoods, to Cambridge, where he excelled at Harvard Law School, and finally back to Chicago, where he pursued his political destiny. In voluminous detail, drawn from more than 1,000 interviews and encyclopedic documentary research, Garrow reveals as never before the ambition, the dreams, and the all-too-human struggles of an iconic president in a sure to be news-making biography that will stand as the most authoritative account of Obamas pre-presidential life for decades to come.

Reviews

Phenomenal one of the most impressive and important books of the year. Its a masterwork of historical and journalistic research, Robert Caro-like in its exhaustiveness, and easily the most authoritative account of Obamas pre-presidential life weve seen or are likely ever to see. Its also a terrific read Politico

'Revealing Probing [Garrow] tells us how Obama lived, and explores the calculations he made in the decades leading up to his winning the presidency' Washington Post

'The authoritative biography of Barack Obamas pre-presidential years Illuminating Impressively researched Readers will be richly rewarded' Library Journal

'A convincing and exceptionally detailed portrait Political history buffs will be fascinated' Publishers Weekly

'Garrow is a demon for research Eminently solid Consistently readable an impressive work' Kirkus Reviews

Author Bio

David J. Garrow is Professor of Law & History and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is the author of four books, including Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. He is a regular contributor to the Washington Post, New York Times, and The American Prospect. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.