''Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama '' is a 2017 biography of former

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

by American author and academic

David Garrow David Jeffries Garrow (born May 11, 1953) is an American author and historian. He wrote the book ''Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference'' (1986), which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biogr ...

. It is Garrow's fifth book.

Background

Working on the book for nine years, Garrow interviewed Obama on several occasions for the book, though much of those conversations remain off the record.

Reception

The book was published by William Morrow on May 9, 2017, to mixed reviews. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'',

Michiko Kakutani is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life and family Kakutani, a Japanese Americ ...

called the book "a dreary slog of a read: a bloated, tedious and — given its highly intemperate epilogue — ill-considered book that is in desperate need of editing, and way more exhausting than exhaustive." In ''Time'', Sarah Begley said the book nevertheless did "contain intriguing insight into the growing pains of a 20-something who would go on to become the leader of the free world, most vividly in the form of letters he wrote to friends." The book also details an unpublished 1991 essay Obama co-wrote with law school classmate and economist Robert Fisher, in which they argue that black Americans should "shift away from rights rhetoric and towards the language of opportunity." In suggesting a lack of such opportunity, the essay mentioned businessman and future president

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

mericans havea continuing normative commitment to the ideals of individual freedom and mobility, values that extend far beyond the issue of race in the American mind. The depth of this commitment may be summarily dismissed as the unfounded optimism of the average American—I may not be Donald Trump now, but just you wait; if I don't make it, my children will."

''Rising Star'' debuted at number 14 on the ''New York Times'' bestseller list for hardcover non-fiction.

References

External links

Part one
an
Part two
of '' Q&A'' interview with Garrow on ''Rising Star'', June 18 and July 23, 2017,

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Biographies about politicians 2017 non-fiction books Books about Barack Obama Books by David Garrow William Morrow and Company books {{AfricanAmerican-bio-book-stub