August 22, 2007

Rohit Reviews: The Audacity of Hope

I picked up a copy of The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama in February 2007, about six months after it had been released. Prior to even opening the book, however, I was besieged by the breathless reactions of those around me: the best book ever; or shameless propaganda announcing his bid for presidency. It seemed that despite all his efforts to temper partisan hysteria—to see the proverbial other side—Senator Obama's own undertaking had become part of that vitriolic game of tit-for-tat, good versus evil, black versus white, that necessarily seems to consume national politics in the U.S., now more than ever in recent memory. My own response to this book is dramatically less frantic.