Sam Leith Sam Leith

Barack Obama was decidedly a man of action as well as words

Many of his triumphs, particularly the Affordable Care Act, were fought for with steely determination in the teeth of ferocious opposition

One of Obama’s tics is to describe himself, at some resonant moment, contemplating the scene and having a Deep Thought or a Meaningful Memory. Credit: Alamy 
issue 28 November 2020
  • Comments

  • A Promised Land

    Barack Obama

    Viking/Penguin, pp. 751, £35

Well, it’s quite the title, isn’t it? It tends to invite comparisons. The first one that occurred to me, though, was that the original Promised Land guy managed to get all the important stuff down on two stone tablets. His would-be successor doesn’t have quite that gift for compression. As he semi-apologises in the opening pages (he feels bad about it, but not bad enough to do a ruthless edit), this memoir was originally envisioned as a 500-pager.

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY 3 MONTHS FOR $5
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Start your 3-month trial today for just $5 and subscribe to more than one view

Read next

Trending

Lana Hempsall

The Motability scheme needs to be put into reverse

Keir Starmer’s government has taken some important first steps to bring the welfare budget under control. But expenditure on disability and incapacity benefits is still set to increase to almost £100 billion by the end of the decade, so more changes are needed. Every aspect of the welfare system must be examined to see if

More on autobiography

Also by Sam Leith

Latest

Comments

Join the debate for just £1 a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.

Already a subscriber? Log in