
The Promise
President Obama, Year One
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Alter
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By:
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Jonathan Alter
Barack Obama’s inauguration as president on January 20, 2009, inspired the world. But the great promise of “Change We Can Believe In” was immediately tested by the threat of another Great Depression, a worsening war in Afghanistan, and an entrenched and deeply partisan system of business as usual in Washington. Despite all the coverage, the backstory of Obama’s historic first year in office has until now remained a mystery.
In The Promise, Jonathan Alter, one of the country’s most respected journalists and historians, uses his unique access to the White House to produce the first inside look at Obama’s difficult debut.
What happened in 2009 inside the Oval Office? What worked and what failed? What is the president really like on the job and in off-hours, using what his best friend called “a Rubik’s Cube in his brain"? These questions are answered here for the first time. We see how a surprisingly cunning Obama took effective charge in Washington several weeks before his election, made trillion-dollar decisions on the stimulus and budget before he was inaugurated, engineered colossally unpopular bailouts of the banking and auto sectors, and escalated a treacherous war not long after settling into office.
The Promise is a fast-paced and incisive narrative of a young risk-taking president carving his own path amid sky-high expectations and surging joblessness. Alter reveals that it was Obama alone—“feeling lucky”—who insisted on pushing major health care reform over the objections of his vice president and top advisors.
Alter takes the listener inside the room as Obama prevents a fistfight involving a congressman, coldly reprimands the military brass for insubordination, crashes the key meeting at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, and bounces back after a disastrous Massachusetts election to redeem a promise that had eluded presidents since FDR.
©2010 Jonathan Alter (P)2010 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...




















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goes way beyond the headlines and soundbites
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Best Book on Obama's Presidency
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Even though it had many details it kept my attention to the end.
I look forward to the second year.
the only way to read a book like this
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good
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The narration is amateurish. His voice often sounds tired. If Alter is going to do a book per year, his publisher should hire a professional reader.
Good book
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However, the book is full of details about what happened in the first year (even though they mostly favor Obama) and more importantly it offers details on Obama's management style and his attitude towards the commander-in-cheif and top executive job.
Enjoy the details of the book (especially, if you're interested in politics like I'm) but remember that it's a first somehow biased draft of history.
A bit Biased
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The recent events with General McChrystal's resignation is made more clear after you've learned how the President developed his Afgan policy and the way he affirmed buy-in.
Of course the bottom line is that, again and again, I am pleased that Barack Obama is our president, and Alter's book helps me feel assured how the President and his staff are likely handling current crises (like BP).
I highly recommend this book. If I had my way, it would be required reading for every American who voted for the President; it would reaffirm their choice (despite some acknowledged screw-ups and a realization that "real change," almost by definition is "slow change.").
Good listening!
Amazing journalism and writing
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an incredibly honest and engaging narrative
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It was a riveting read, from balancing the Republican strategy of saying no, the dynamics versus each of the Clintons and the remarkable campaign he mounted to win the Democratic nomination and then the presidency. How McCain and Palin were viewed was amusing.
The best book I have read by far on Obama from his campaign through is first year in office.
Gives Great Insight
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Its a decent book that succeeds in what it sets out to do.
Jonathan Alter is clearly sympathetic to Obama and his brand of pragmatic liberalism. So if you're looking for a neutral or a negative view of the president, this book will probably be an irritating disappointment.
By noting that this volume is decent I also want to highlight that it's not great.
Yes, by reading The Promise you would get a little more insider information about the young presidency than you would if you were following Obama in the pages of the New York Times. But you won't get that much more.
Most of the book consists of rehashing what any political junkie already knows (but may have forgotten).
Tidbits of novel insights are intermixed with the authors prolonged analysis and interpretations that can get redundant. They are by no means intolerable, its just that instead of having a feeling of reading a detailed history one often has a sense of consuming a vague, supportive editorial.
I don't have a problem with a liberal bias. I am a liberal and will enthusiastically support Obama in the upcoming elections. But this books lengthy and supportive psychoanalysis of Obama's character and vague support of his policies gets a little old.
Atler's transparent admiration of Obama shrouds the narrative with a blurry softness.
Basically, my problem is that instead of concrete information, after a brief and adequate summary of some event in 2009 you then get pro-Obama analysis of the event and the book moves on to something new.
Its not bad, and is pretty informative but leaves you without a sense of any great insight.
a decent book
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