To Obama
A People's History
Published on 4. April 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
416 pages
978-1-4088-9450-7 (ISBN)
Description
One of the most important politics books of the year, To Obama is a record of a time when politics intersected with empathy.
'The real story of Obama's America' Sunday Times
Every day, President Obama received ten thousand letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of them before going to bed.
In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter-writers themselves and the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Correspondence who were witness to the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom during the Obama years. At once desperate, joyful, hateful and despairing, they form an intimate portrait of one man's relationship with the American people, and of a time when empathy intersected with politics in the White House.
'The real story of Obama's America' Sunday Times
Every day, President Obama received ten thousand letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of them before going to bed.
In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter-writers themselves and the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Correspondence who were witness to the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom during the Obama years. At once desperate, joyful, hateful and despairing, they form an intimate portrait of one man's relationship with the American people, and of a time when empathy intersected with politics in the White House.
Reviews / Votes
Reminiscent of Tom Wolfe at his best ... It may be trite to say that To Obama is itself a love letter, but that's how it reads: like a letter to someone long lost. It is steeped in a powerful yearning for a period in time that slips further from us with every passing day. How did we fall so far? * New Statesman * A moving and inevitably nostalgic or even elegiac read, redolent of the human grace and statesmanship of the Obama presidency ... A beautifully researched and written book * Observer * To Obama gives us a glimpse of a secret and incredibly sweet world within his White House, and paints a portrait of a man deeply concerned with his citizens' problems, struggling to do the right thing. [A] startling, delicate and immensely readable story ... Another poignant reminder of what once was * Telegraph * Full of lovely details ... The insight into America provided by the letters cleverly selected by Laskas is fascinating * Literary Review * These stories, when you read them all together, tell the American story. It's inspirational, it's frustrating, it's angry, it's grateful, it's resilient -- Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama Alternately heart-breaking and hopeful, angry and questioning - the empathetic, often poetic, polar opposite of the Trump twitter feed * Vogue * The heartbreaking, hope-inducing letters tell the story of a nation * Elle *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-9450-7 (9781408894507)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2018
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Jeanne Marie Laskas is the author of eight books, including the New York Times bestseller Concussion. She is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, a correspondent at GQ and a two-time National Magazine Award finalist. Her stories have also appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic and Esquire. She lives in Pennsylvania.
jeannemarielaskas.com / @jmlaskas
jeannemarielaskas.com / @jmlaskas