Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Barack Obama

By: Burton I. Kaufman
Narrated by: James Fouhey
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Following his election, President Obama's supporters and detractors anticipated radical reform. As the first African American to serve as president, he reached the White House on a campaign promise of change. But, as Burton Kaufman explores in this insightful biography, Obama showed clear patterns of classical conservativism of an ideological sort and basic policy-making pragmatism. His commitment to usher in a multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural society was fundamentally connected to opening up, but not radically altering, the existing free enterprise system.

The Affordable Care Act was a distillation of President Obama's complex motivations for policy. More conservative than radical, the ACA fitted the expansion of health insurance into the existing system. Similarly, in foreign policy, Obama eschewed the use of force to affect regime change. Yet he kept boots on the ground in the Middle East and supported ballot-box revolts geared toward achieving in foreign countries the same principles of liberalism, free enterprise, and competition that existed in the United States.

In estimating the course and impact of Obama's full political life, Kaufman makes clear that both the desire for and fear of change in the American polity affected the popular perception but not the course of action of the 44th US president.

©2022 Cornell University (P)2022 Tantor
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Black President cover art
The Divider cover art
Crackup cover art
The Presidency of George W. Bush cover art
Birchers cover art
42 cover art
They're Not Listening cover art
41 cover art
Congress, Presidents, and American Politics cover art
Bigger Than Bernie cover art
The Jazz Age President cover art
Against the Wind cover art
We've Got People cover art
U.S. Presidents for Dummies (2nd Edition) cover art
The Ten Year War cover art
Reconsidering Reagan cover art

What listeners say about Barack Obama

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.