#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Barack Obama's lucid vision of
America's place in the world and call for a new kind of politics that
builds upon our shared understandings as Americans, based on his years
in the Senate
"In our lowdown, dispiriting era, Obama's talent for proposing humane,
sensible solutions with uplifting, elegant prose does fill one with
hope."--Michael Kazin, The Washington Post
In July 2004, four years before his presidency, Barack Obama electrified
the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to
Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular
anchored itself in listeners' minds, a reminder that for all the discord
and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been
guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what Obama called "the
audacity of hope."
The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's call for a different brand of
politics--a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and
alienated by the "endless clash of armies" we see in congress and on the
campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and
nobility of spirit at the heart of "our improbable experiment in
democracy." He explores those forces--from the fear of losing to the
perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media--that can stifle
even the best-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising
intimacy and self-deprecating humor, about settling in as a senator,
seeking to balance the demands of public service and family life, and
his own deepening religious commitment.
At the heart of this book is Barack Obama's vision of how we can move
beyond our divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the
growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and
religious tensions within the body politic, and the transnational
threats--from terrorism to pandemic--that gather beyond our shores. And
he grapples with the role that faith plays in a democracy--where it is
vital and where it must never intrude. Underlying his stories is a
vigorous search for connection: the foundation for a radically hopeful
political consensus.
Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution,
Obama says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and
restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of
touch with millions of ordinary Americans. Those Americans are out
there, he writes--"waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up
with them."
