Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
by Barack Obama

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
List Price: $25.95
Our Price: $18.14
You Save: $7.81 (30%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $14.24 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Barack Obama
Edition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-01-09
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Crown

Summary of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Nine years before the Senate campaign that made him one of the most influential and compelling voices in American politics, Barack Obama published this lyrical, unsentimental, and powerfully affecting memoir, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller when it was reissued in 2004. Dreams from My Father tells the story of Obama?s struggle to understand the forces that shaped him as the son of a black African father and white American mother?a struggle that takes him from the American heartland to the ancestral home of his great-aunt in the tiny African village of Alego.

Obama opens his story in New York, where he hears that his father?a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man?has died in a car accident. The news triggers a chain of memories as Barack retraces his family?s unusual history: the migration of his mother?s family from small-town Kansas to the Hawaiian islands; the love that develops between his mother and a promising young Kenyan student, a love nurtured by youthful innocence and the integrationist spirit of the early sixties; his father?s departure from Hawaii when Barack was two, as the realities of race and power reassert themselves; and Barack?s own awakening to the fears and doubts that exist not just between the larger black and white worlds but within himself.

Propelled by a desire to understand both the forces that shaped him and his father?s legacy, Barack moves to Chicago to work as a community organizer. There, against the backdrop of tumultuous political and racial conflict, he works to turn back the mounting despair of the inner city. His story becomes one with those of the people he works with as he learns about the value of community, the necessity of healing old wounds, and the possibility of faith in the midst of adversity.

Barack?s journey comes full circle in Kenya, where he finally meets the African side of his family and confronts the bitter truth of his father?s life. Traveling through a country racked by brutal poverty and tribal conflict, but whose people are sustained by a spirit of endurance and hope, Barack discovers that he is inescapably bound to brothers and sisters living an ocean away?and that by embracing their common struggles he can finally reconcile his divided inheritance.

A searching meditation on the meaning of identity in America, Dreams from My Father might be the most revealing portrait we have of a major American leader?a man who is playing, and will play, an increasingly prominent role in healing a fractious and fragmented nation.



Pictured in lefthand photograph on cover: Habiba Akumu Hussein and Barack Obama, Sr. (President Obama's paternal grandmother and his father as a young boy). Pictured in righthand photograph on cover: Stanley Dunham and Ann Dunham (President Obama's maternal grandfather and his mother as a young girl).

African-American & Black Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in African-American & Black Books
Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son ImageLeaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son
by Paul Hemphill
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1995-01-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Price in other shops: $12.95
Wynton Marsalis: Skain's Domain: A Biography ImageWynton Marsalis: Skain's Domain: A Biography
by Leslie Gourse
Schirmer Trade Books; Published: 1999-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.72
The Miles Davis Companion: Four Decades of Commentary ImageThe Miles Davis Companion: Four Decades of Commentary
by Gary Carner
Schirmer Trade Books; Published: 1996-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.36
Kaffir Boy in America ImageKaffir Boy in America
by Mathabane
Free Press; Published: 1990-08-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.35
Price in other shops: $10.00
LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS ImageLIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS
by Frederick Douglass
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1962-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $59.57
My American Journey My American Journey ImageMy American Journey My American Journey
by Colin L. Powell, Joseph Persico
Turtleback Books: A Division of Sanval; Published: 1996-01; School & Library Binding; Book
Best price: $81.39
Black Titan: A. G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire ImageBlack Titan: A. G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire
by Carol Jenkins, Elizabeth Gardner Hines
One World/Ballantine; Published: 2003-12-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $40.44
Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family ImageExtraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family
by Condoleezza Rice
Random House Audio; Published: 2010-10-12; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $21.03
Price in other shops: $35.00
Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World WarII ImageNow the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World WarII
by Brendan I. Koerner
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2009-05-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $16.00
On My Own at 107: Reflections on Life Without Bessie ImageOn My Own at 107: Reflections on Life Without Bessie
by Sarah Louise Delany, Amy Hill Hearth, Brian M. Kotzky
Harper San Francisco; Published: 1997-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.63
Price in other shops: $14.00
Similar Books and other products
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance ImageDreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
by Barack Obama
Broadway; Published: 2004-08-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.90
Price in other shops: $14.95
The Rise of Islamic Capitalism: Why the New Muslim Middle Class Is the Key to Defeating Extremism (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Free Press)) ImageThe Rise of Islamic Capitalism: Why the New Muslim Middle Class Is the Key to Defeating Extremism (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Free Press))
by Vali Nasr
Free Press; Published: 2010-06-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.75
Price in other shops: $16.00
Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) ImageGlobalization: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
by Manfred Steger
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2009-03-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.15
Price in other shops: $11.95
Why Race Matters in South Africa ImageWhy Race Matters in South Africa
by Michael MacDonald
Harvard University Press; Published: 2006-04-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $51.94
Price in other shops: $54.50
Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West ImageFree World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West
by Timothy Garton Ash
Vintage; Published: 2005-12-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.54
Price in other shops: $17.00
China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities ImageChina's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities
by C. Fred Bergsten, Charles Freeman, Nicholas R. Lardy, Derek J. Mitchell
Peterson Institute for International Economics; Published: 2009-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.93
Price in other shops: $13.95
For Love of Country? ImageFor Love of Country?
by Martha Nussbaum, Joshua Cohen
Beacon Press; Published: 2002-06-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.02
Price in other shops: $17.00
Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters ImageOf Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
by Barack Obama
Knopf Books for Young Readers; Knopf Books for Young Readers; Published: 2010-11-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.98
Price in other shops: $17.99
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream ImageThe Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
by Barack Obama
Crown; Published: 2006-10-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.65
Price in other shops: $25.00
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage) ImageThe Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage)
by Barack Obama
Vintage; Published: 2008-07-15; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.97
Price in other shops: $7.99
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories