The audacity of hope

Barack Obama leads the reader through sections of his life, beginning with his campaigns to the US Senate as a Democrat. His feeling is that democracy has gone awry, with a gap between the ideals professed and the reality witness daily. So small has politics become that tough decisions are avoided, with things petty and trivial causing a lot of distraction.
Readers have a glance into the dynamics operating in the sixties for him as a child of a mixed marriage; we see something of who his mother really was, then move on to the seventies.
Obama argues there is need for a broad majority of Americans from across the political divide, all those of good will, to work together for the benefit of America.
He tells readers of his criticisms of the Bush administration and confesses he does not see G. Bush as a bad man, and only assumes he is trying to do what he considers best for the country. He reminds readers of the constant tension between values which are individualistic and communal; between the autonomous and those based on solidarity. It is difficult to balance competing values, and probably even more difficult to get to the point of debating these hard choices. America is characterised by the context between power and principle.
We see what can be done and what cannot be done, in the framework of the American Constitution, whose founders sought to prevent absolute power. It allows the envisioning of a road map that allows the marriage of passion to reason, of individual freedom to the demands of community. America’s is a constitution that has worked admirably.
Readers journey in this book through the jungle that is politics, as they try, with the author, to find ways that will tackle problems in American society, in a concrete and just manner. Obama strongly advocates that Americans need to return to the principles upon which their constitution was founded, if they hope to enjoy true democracy.
The author, - senator, lawyer, professor and father all rolled into one - , skilfully sets readers thinking more deeply about politics and societal values in America.