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Barack Obama

Bylines

Book
A Promised Land
Barack Obama
2020
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Related Works

Book
A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama's Defining Decisions
Reed Hundt
2019
Book
We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama
Joy-Ann Reid, E. J. Dionne Jr.
2017

Related Excerpts

President Obama wipes the sweat from his forehead at a press conference.

We Now Know the Full Extent of Obama’s Disastrous Apathy Toward the Climate Crisis

Obama’s official oral history contains new evidence of his indifference and foot-dragging on the most important issue of our time.
by Nathan J. Robinson via Current Affairs on June 5, 2023
Picture of Barack Obama and W.E.B Du Bois.

A Prophet and a President

Why black biography matters.
by David Levering Lewis via The American Scholar on October 21, 2021
President Obama in the Oval Office.

Pictures at a Restoration

On Pete Souza’s Obama.
by Blair McClendon via n+1 on August 10, 2021
A collage with photos of Barack Obama.

The Limits of Barack Obama’s Idealism

“A Promised Land” tells of a country that needed a savior.
by Thomas Meaney via The New Republic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on February 15, 2021
Barack Obama

The Obamanauts

What is the defining achievement of Barack Obama?
by Corey Robin via Dissent on October 7, 2019
Photo over Obama's shoulder facing Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner on the other side of a conference table.

Obama's Original Sin

A new insider account reveals how the Obama administration’s botched bailout deal reinforced neoliberal Clintonism.
by Eric Rauchway via Boston Review on April 23, 2019

Between Obama and Coates

Because both thinkers neglect political economy, they end up promoting a politics that is responsible for the nation's growing inequality.
by Touré F. Reed via Catalyst on March 12, 2018

Race to the Bottom

How the post-racial revolution became a whitewash.
by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw via The Baffler
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on June 1, 2017

The Wrong Side of 'the Right Side of History'

President Obama espouses a facile faith in history bending toward perfection and morality-against evidence and reason.
by David A. Graham via The Atlantic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on December 21, 2015
A statue of Barack and Michelle Obama waving.

Obama’s and Trump’s Presidential Centers Have One Thing in Common

The new Obama Presidential Center, in Chicago, is inspiring—but departs from other presidential libraries in a crucial, and risky, way.
by Kelsey Ables via The Atlantic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on June 9, 2026
Jesse Jackson speaking at a podium

Jesse Jackson’s Crossover Moment and the Dilettantish Turn in the Postwar U.S. Left

Jesse Jackson’s campaigns replaced mass organizing with brokerage politics and accelerated the Democratic left’s neoliberal turn.
by Adolph Reed Jr. via Nonsite on April 14, 2026
Protesting Obama’s second inauguration, January 2013

The Legacy of Obama's Drone Wars

Who paved the road to Trump's war?
by Séamus Malekafzali via The Drift
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on March 19, 2026
Fires raging after Israeli air strikes hit a solar farm in Tyre, Lebanon, on the fifth day of the US–Israeli war with Iran.

The Lie of ‘Preventive’ War

Never has Donald Trump’s willful blindness to legal limits been more evident than in his decision to start a war with Iran.
by David Cole via New York Review of Books
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on March 6, 2026
Obama hands the Paris Agreement documents to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Paris Climate Agreement at 10 Years

Declassified records begin to detail the U.S. negotiating strategy in the historic accord.
by Rachel Santarsiero via National Security Archive on December 12, 2025
World Trade Center towers burning on 9/11.

The Righteous Community: Legacies of the War on Terror

A new book traces how "the wet dream of an ageing militarist has become a fundamental force driving American foreign policy."
by Jackson Lears via London Review of Books
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on July 24, 2025
President George W. Bush delivering the first State of the Union speech after the 9/11 attacks.

The Legacy of the ‘Axis of Evil’

One speech permanently influenced American diplomacy—and not for the better.
by Kourosh Ziabari via The American Conservative on December 20, 2024

The Sentimentalizing of Federalist Ten

Ideas about history still prevailing in the liberal resistance to Trump keep pushing us backward.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on December 10, 2024
A drawing of two people speaking with a third person's head listening between them.

Diverging Majority

Demography has not managed to be destiny in the past half-century—but predictions of a millenarian shift have not lost their appeal.
by Rick Perlstein, Geraldo Cadava via The Baffler
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on September 3, 2024
Collage of popular culture references from 2008 onward.

That Feeling You Recognize? Obamacore.

The 2008 election sparked an outburst of brightness and positivity across pop culture. Now hindsight — and cringe — is setting in.
by Nate Jones via Vulture
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on August 20, 2024
Kamala Harris

The Cultural History Behind Trump's Attack on Kamala Harris's Race

What the scholarship on biraciality tells us about politics now.
by Rafael Walker via The Chronicle of Higher Education
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on August 8, 2024
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