Codename: Renegade

Reviews / Votes

Insightful ... a thoughtful meditation on Mr Obama's life and character -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times * Wolffe's technique is to combine biography and reportage, to take milestones along the campaign trail and use them as portals into the character and make-up of the man behind the candidate ... An insider's tour of the travelling circus/endurance test that is the 21st-century American presidential race * Observer * Obama gave [Wolffe] exclusive interviews and invited him into his inner circle to play basketball. The result, Renegade - Obama's secret service codename - is peppered with interviews with Obama's best friends and political accomplices, who were equally eager to help * The Sunday Times * A fly's-eye view of one of the most thrilling political insurgencies in modern American history * Economist * The first of the President Obama books--and a good one--insightful, thorough and straight -- Ben Bradlee, vice president at large of The Washington Post A superb achievement. With an almost painterly eye, compelling insights and extraordinary access to Barack Obama and his inner circle, Richard Wolffe's Renegade tells the hidden, dramatic story of the 2008 campaign and also reveals much we did not know about the 44th President's life before politics. -- Michael Beschloss, political historian Many journalists covered the 2008 presidential campaign for newsrooms and blogvilles. Not the intrepid Richard Wolffe. With gumshoe persistence he tracked Barack Obama's historic march to victory with grace and cunning. Renegade offers a deft mix of biography, personal reflection, British wit and old-style journalism. Destined to be a classic in its genre. -- Douglas Brinkley, historian and contributing editor to Vanity Fair Richard Wolffe takes the reader deep inside the campaign, revealing--often for the first time--how the candidate and his closest confidants dealt with the biggest crises in the election. He earned their trust and it paid off handsomely in that he reveals new details and new aspects of the candidate's character that have remained sequestered from view...until now. -- Michele Norris, US journalist