{"product_id":"book-asj1","title":"The Bridge","description":"No story has been more central to America’s history this century than the rise of Barack Obama, and until now, no journalist or historian has written a book that\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003efully investigates the circumstances and experiences of Obama’s life or explores the ambition behind his rise.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eThose familiar with Obama’s own best-selling memoir\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eor his campaign speeches know the touchstones and details that he chooses to emphasize, but now—from a writer whose gift for illuminating the historical significance\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eof unfolding events is without peer—we have a portrait, at once masterly and fresh,\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003enuanced and unexpected, of a young man in search of himself,\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eand of a rising politician determined to become the first African-American president.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Bridge\u003c\/i\u003e offers the most complete account yet of\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eObama’s tragic father, a brilliant economist who abandoned\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ehis family and ended his life as a beaten man;\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eof his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham,\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ewho had a child as a teenager and then built her career as an anthropologist living and studying in Indonesia;\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eand of the succession of elite institutions that first exposed Obama\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eto the social tensions and intellectual currents\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ethat would force him to imagine and fashion an identity for himself. Through extensive on-the-record interviews with friends and teachers, mentors and disparagers, family members and Obama himself,\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eDavid Remnick allows us to see how a rootless, unaccomplished, and confused young man\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ecreated himself first as a community organizer in Chicago, an\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eexperience that would not only shape his urge to work in politics but give him a home and a community, and that would propel him to Harvard Law School, where his sense of a greater mission emerged.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDeftly setting Obama’s political career against the galvanizing intersection of race and politics in Chicago’s history, Remnick shows us how that city’s complex racial legacy would make Obama’s forays into politics a source of controversy and bare-knuckle tactics: his clashes with older black politicians in the Illinois State Senate, his disastrous decision to challenge the former Black Panther Bobby Rush for Congress in 2000, the sex scandals that would decimate his more experienced opponents in the 2004 Senate race, and the story—from both sides—of his confrontation with his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eBy looking at Obama’s political rise through the prism of our racial history, Remnick gives us the conflicting agendas of black politicians: the dilemmas of men like Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, and Joseph Lowery,\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eheroes of the civil rights movement, who are forced to reassess old loyalties and understand the priorities of a new generation of African-American leaders.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Bridge\u003c\/i\u003e revisits the American drama of race, from slavery to civil rights, and makes clear how Obama’s quest is not just his own but is emblematic of a nation where destiny is defined by individuals keen to imagine a future that is different from the reality of their current lives.","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49338799817008,"sku":"BDasj1","price":32.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/283136-asj1-Square.jpg?v=1734005165","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-asj1","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}