To the Point
Author David Garrow's critical look at the rise of Barack Obama
Obama himself spent eight hours reading the manuscript. But Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama is very much an unauthorized biography. Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Garrow describes how the 44th president shaped his personal life to create the right political image.
By Warren Olney • • 1h 3m ListenAuthor David Garrow interviewed 1000 people over nine years for Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. It covers Obama’s youth in Hawaii, college years in New York and California, and community organizing in Chicago. He writes about Obama’s experience at Harvard Law School, how he got elected to office in Illinois and finally, the presidential nomination. Garrow found Obama’s presidency to be a “huge disappointment.” He calls the president's best-selling 1995 memoir, Dreams of My Father, “a work of historical fiction” designed to create the image he needed to appeal to interest groups, including potential supporters who didn’t think he was “black enough.” Garrow says his “huge disappointment” in the Obama Presidency did not color his research. And he’s hardest of all on American public opinion.
Photo: The cover of Garrow's Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama
