
As his former Vice President Joe Biden prepares to become the 46th President of the United States, President Barack Obama is ready to present his reflections on his own presidency in the first part of his new memoir, A Promised Land.
Due to come out in book stories this week, on November 17, the memoir is an introspective read on the former President's time in the White House and as the first African-American President of the United States.
Already, the memoir has received favourable reviews, with The New York Times writing: "Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come. It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid."
From the 'angriest' he ever was in his presidency to his surprising smoking habit, tidbits of information about Obama's memoir have been released to the memoir. Here's what we've learnt so far.
Obama's Book: ‘My presence triggered a deep-seated panic.’
US President Barack Obama shake hands with President-elect Donald Trump during the Presidential Inauguration at the US Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. Image: Getty.
Barack Obama reflects on how his election win in 2008 sparked deeply racist attitudes among some Americans, which his successor Donald Trump aimed to fuel during his campaign for the 2016 election, according to CNN who received an early copy.
"It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted, which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president. For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety."
Top Comments