Dreams from My Father
A Story of Race and Inheritance
by Barack Obama · first published 1995
38% recommend54% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
Praised as a well-written memoir with a strong storytelling voice, offering an early look at Obama's upbringing and mindset before his presidential run; suits readers curious about his personal background.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Dreams from My Father is Barack Obama's remarkable memoir. The son of a black African father and a white American mother, Obama was only two years old when his father walked out on the family. Many years later, Obama receives a phone call from Nairobi: his father is dead. This sudden news inspires an emotional odyssey for Obama, determined to learn the truth of his father's life and reconcile his divided inheritance. Written at the age of thirty-three, long before Obama had thoughts of a political career, Dreams from My Father is an unforgettable read. It illuminates not only Obama's journey,
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…contemplating conceiving my startup and giving up the "safety" (illusion of safety) of a "normal-job". A must read for anyone planing to start a company and want to take it to the stratosphere (or higher)! 7. Dreams from My Father (Barack Obama) - Another polarizing personality. A short but powerful memoir by Obama. This gives a unique insight into Obama's thought processes. Most people can relate to this and every "Leader" must…
on “Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?” ↗…Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places by Paul Collier. Someone smart thinks about how to move failed states toward democracy in such a way that it sticks. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama. A good memoir, but particularly interesting because he wrote it before he was famous. Cliff Walk by Don Snyder. An English professor gets fired and becomes a carpenter. Great if academia…
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗…describing a Christian pastor's fight against fascism during WW2) 46. Zero to One 47. You'll grow out of it 48. The Happiness advantage (Really fantastic book about the value of positive psychology) 49. Dreams from my father (Enlightening look into Obama's early days) 50. Ayoade on Ayoade (Entertaining, extremely scatter-brained, not as funny as his interviews or tv programs) 51. The Diabolic (badly written YA Sci-Fi)…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗Obama has said that he wrote "very bad poetry" in college and his biographer David Mendell suggests that he once "harbored some thoughts of writing fiction as an avocation." For that matter, "Dreams From My Father" evinces an instinctive storytelling talent (which would later serve the author well on the campaign trail) and that odd combination of empathy and detachment gifted novelists possess. In that memoir,…
on “From books, Obama found his voice” ↗Dreams From My Father is a pretty good book. He wrote it before he started running for President, so it's actually quite a nice insight into his mind. It's worth reading just to get to know a hard-working, successful biracial…
on “Churchill and His Money, or Lack of It” ↗The relationship between the writing of doctrines, books, etc and people rising to power is a pretty interesting one. See also: Obama's Dreams From My Father, The Audacity of Hope. Trump's Crippled America. Hitler's Mein Kampf (the copyright on that is expiring very soon). Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book". In Ender's Game (fiction, but compelling), Ender's…
on “Churchill and His Money, or Lack of It” ↗Let me further refer you to Obama's book, "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. THE MARXIST…
on “Obama and Rand Paul Face Off Over the Patriot Act” ↗…Coffee savvy Democrats should develop and market an "Obama blend" (TOO LATE, but I still see a future in Obama-branded Kool-Aid) [1] Communists, Terrorists, and Racists. The triple crown! [2] See "Dreams from my Father" [3] http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTQ0YjhlOGVhYjQ0OWRhZjI... The South Shore African Village Collaborative (SSAVC) was very much a part of the Afrocentric “rites of passage movement,” a fringe…
…while also saying things like the Civil Rights Act should be repealed? Call me unsurprised if people are upset about it. The Reverend Wright deal is a weak comparison. Something analogous would be if, in Dreams from My Father, Obama had said "I wish a Mao would rise in the United States to give the capitalist running dogs what they deserve." And given what he's given shit for... do you seriously not believe he'd get shit for…
on “Ron Paul speaks against SOPA” ↗> The weirdest part about all this is that Obama was deeply religious I really did not get that impression at all from his book Dreams From My Father. A quick Google suggests that both his father and mother were atheists at points in their life. I do know that Obama did attend church more often as he started to move into politics.
on “Why Are Americans Still Uncomfortable with Atheism?” ↗Barack Obama discussed this culture quite a bit in his first book, Dreams from my Father. He went to Africa as a young man for the first time, and it provides quite an interesting look at what modern Kenyan life was like at the time.
on “Why are there so many unfinished buildings in Africa?” ↗…it ‘the best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School,’ an education that he said was ‘seared into my brain.’ He devoted about one-third of the 442 pages in his memoir, ‘Dreams From My Father,’ to chronicling that Chicago organizing period.”). Certainly, Obama was steeped in racial politics prior to his becoming president. And racial activism has flourished in the aftermath of his presidency—though…
on “The Fed's Big Problem, There Are Two Economies but Only One Interest Rate” ↗…liberties. Education wasn't just for men, for awhile. Of course Joe Biden put a stop to that, didn't he? Colin Powell did plenty of bad things, but the same folks crucifying him probably have a copy of "Dreams from my Father" in their library and have absolved the equally complicit left-leaning politicians of any crimes. Every single national politician is a self-interested, amoral, shit-bag. Lionizing one side while pillorying…
on “Colin Powell has died” ↗…Grant's memoirs on up. There is some value to these ridiculous autobiographies (not so much for the I-hate-the-President-books). In 100 years, some future historian can draw from 'The Art of the Deal', 'Dreams From My Father', and probably some biography of Millard Fillmore to reach a conclusion. In the long run, they are all non-entities.
on “Writing books is not really a good idea” ↗