A Promised Land
Barack Obama
Having read it
★★★★☆
An interesting and insightful read, especially the parts about his early years and family, but a bit too long! Although, despite it being a tome, the writing did flow and engage really well and certainly assist in showing his talents, abilities and skills.
A good passage
[... in Kiev, 2005] Nunn-Lugar was funding the installation of new storage systems for Cold War-era biological research samples, including anthrax and bubonic plague. It was sobering, all of it, proof of people’s capacity to harness ingenuity in the service of madness. But for me, after so many years spent on domestic issues, the trip was also invigorating – a reminder of just how big the world was and of the profound human consequences of decisions made in Washington.
A second good passage
[...] travelling as the First Family wasn’t the same as travelling during the campaign, when we’d ride an RV from town to town and Miche and the girls would stay at my side through parades and county fairs. I now had my itinerary and they had theirs – along with their own support staff, briefings, and official photographer. At the end of our first night in Moscow, when we reunited at the Ritz-Carlton, the four of us lay on the bed and Malia asked why I hadn’t gone with them to see the Russian dancers and dollmakers. Michelle leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, ‘You’re father’s not allowed to have fun. He has to sit in boring meetings all day.’
‘Poor Daddy,’ Sasha said, patting me on the head.
A third good passage
Meanwhile, public attitudes about the disaster [Deepwater Horizon] began to shift. Throughout the first few weeks of the spill, BP bore the brunt of the blame. Not only did Americans tend to be skeptical of oil companies, but BP’s CEO, Tony Hayward, was a walking PR disaster – stating in the media that the spill involved a ‘relatively tiny’ amount of oil in ‘a very big ocean’; arguing in another interview that no one wanted to see the hole plugged more than him because ‘I’d like my life back’; and generally living up to every stereotype of the arrogant, out-of-touch multinational executive. (His obtuseness reminded me that BP – previously known as British Petroleum – had started off as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company: the same company whose unwillingness to split royalties with Iran’s government in the 1950s had led to the coup that ultimately resulted in that country’s Islamic Revolution.)