NEW EDITION WITH EXPANDED TEXT, WITH A FOREWORD BY JON MEACHAM: The
original edition of Obama: The Call of History (2017) was the first
full-fledged pictorial history of President Barack Obama's two terms in
office to be published as he stepped down. Now comes an updated
version that expands the narrative account and adds new perspective from
author Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York
Times.
In this new edition, Baker reports on new details about the final
months of the Obama presidency as Russia sought to intervene in American
democracy, and assesses the impact of Donald Trump's presidency on
Barack Obama's legacy. Baker chronicles a period of great hope,
tumult, accomplishments, and, yes, failure. This is the story of a young
president who took on the worst financial disaster since the Great
Depression, forged a controversial health care program, watched
anxiously in the Situation Room after approving the raid that killed
Osama Bin Laden and endured mid-term election defeats. In a presidency
buffeted by one crisis after another, he struggled with the Syrian civil
war, a Russian invasion of its neighbor, the rise of the Islamic State,
and, at home, often violent racial strife and recalcitrant Congress.
His first line in the history books was written the day he won office as
the first African-American president, but he was determined to offer
more than simply a new complexion in the Oval Office, writes Baker,
Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, about the 44th
president of the United States. Inspiring in a crowded stadium yet
difficult behind the scenes, Obama was a master politician who loathed
politics. To many, he was an enigma, often seen through the lens of the
observer--a liberal zealot to the right, an overeager compromiser to the
left. I am a Rorschach test, he once noted. But he was the dominant
figure of his age. After eight eventful years, he would never be the
same--and neither would be his country.
Featuring expanded text, this fully updated chronicle of Obama: The
Call of History is an in-depth account of Barack Obama's years in
office, as well as an examination of his legacy as it stands today.
