Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, And The Making Of History By John Patrick Diggins

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center, Diggins (The Rise and Fall of the American Left) provides an original reappraisal of Ronald Reagan from the conservative perspective. Throughout, Diggins discovers nuances that have heretofore escaped notice by most other Reagan scholars. For example: in appraising Reagans reaction as California governor to 60s radicals, Diggins is the first writer to acknowledge the extent to which the onetime movie star shared common ground with rebels on campuses nationwide. Reagan, with his reverence for Thomas Paine and passion for limiting the reach of government, was—on at least one level—more than sympathetic when Berkeley protesters chanted, Two, Four, Six, Eight, Organize to Smash the State! Although a fan of Reagans, Diggins doesnt hesitate to be critical—as when he discusses Reagans attitude as president toward environmental issues, which Diggins characterizes as puzzling and disastrous. (Diggins notes that Reagans record as governor of California, where he allied himself with old guard Republican conservationists, was far more environmentally-friendly.) Overall, Diggins does a superb job of tracing Reagans intellectual development from old school New Dealer to thoughtful, Emersonian libertarian, and also firmly establishes Reagans credentials as a major architect of communisms final collapse. 13 photos. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From
Because Reagan has been misinterpreted by both the Right and the Left, his legacy in American political history has been distorted and undervalued, according to Diggins, author of The Rise and Fall of the American Left (1992). Contrary to liberal opinions, Reagan was no philosophical lightweight, nor was he the moral absolutist lauded by conservatives. He was a man of consistent beliefs, forged during the cold war. In his efforts to end the cold war, he was closer to liberals who always thought it possible than to conservatives who didnt believe it could ever be done. Reagan was the only president in American history to have resolved a sustained, deadly international confrontation without going to war, defying liberal expectations of him personally and conservative expectations of the value of diplomacy. Reagan rejected the authority of religion as much as government. By convincing Americans to believe in themselves, Reagan demonstrated the duality of American political culture, that it is both liberal and conservative. This is a thoughtful book for both Reagan admirers and critics. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Why Buy A Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, And The Making Of History By John Patrick Diggins?
Affirming Reagans position as one of Americas greatest presidents, this is a bold and philosophical reevaluation.

Following his departure from office, Ronald Reagan was marginalized thanks to liberal biases that dominate the teaching of American history, says John Patrick Diggins. Yet Reagan, like Lincoln (who was also attacked for decades after his death), deserves to be regarded as one of our three or four greatest presidents. Reagan was far more active a president and far more sophisticated than we ever knew. His negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev and his opposition to foreign interventions demonstrate that he was not a rigid hawk. And in his pursuit of Emersonian ideals in his distrust of big government, he was the most open-minded libertarian president the country has ever had; combining a reverence for Americas hallowed historical traditions with an implacable faith in the limitless opportunities of the future. This is a revealing portrait of great character, a book that reveals the fortieth president to be an exemplar of the truest conservative values. 13 photographs.

Customer Reviews & Opinions

The Great Communicator’s Political Philosophy
I read this book for a graduate class in American history. In this noteworthy biography, John Patrick Diggins sheds light on Ronald Reagan’s evolving political philosophy and how this philosophy was his rule and guide throughout his life. Expertly written and based on both primary and secondary sources, this book’s view favors Reagan’s political career in general. Diggins did an excellent job of pointing out both historical and contemporary figures who helped form Reagan’s religious beliefs and political philosophy. Some examples are Thomas Paine, Reagan’s mother, Whittaker Chambers who was an anti-Communist, and economist F. A. Hayek. By following a more psychological approach in this biography of the fortieth president of the United States, Diggins drew a clearer picture of Reagan’s political motivations than has been previously available. Diggins’ biography has made Reagan, who was perhaps the most important president of the second half of the twentieth century, more understandable to his readers.

In his biography, Diggins was adept at pointing out many of the misconceptions that liberals had of Reagan’s religious and political beliefs. As an example, Diggins emphasized the role Reagan’s mother had in formulating his religious beliefs that stayed with him throughout his life. From his mother, Reagan inherited the optimistic outlook on life that the Disciples of Christ Church espoused. It would fit very neatly with his political philosophy that he shared with Thomas Paine. Both men were staunch believers in people attaining liberty and freedom from oppressive government. After all Diggins made the point innumerably throughout his book, that if there was one defining and deeply held belief that Reagan had, it was that “Reagan inevitably saw government as the problem” (xvii). There were so many incongruities in Reagan’s religious attitudes and actions that historians will be debating them for many years to come. Diggins expertly pointed out that for all the support that the Moral Majority crowd, led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, gave Reagan in both his presidential campaigns, he truly shared little in common with their strict religious beliefs. Reagan did not wear his religion on his sleeve. He did not claim to be a born again Christian. During his years in the White House, he seldom attended church services. Although as Governor of California in 1967 Reagan signed a bill to grant women the right to have an abortion, he soon had misgivings but never tried to push legislation through to abolish abortion. He would speak out against abortion for the rest of his life. Similarly, Reagan spoke of the need for religion in the classroom; however, he made no political moves to bring that goal of the Moral Majority to fruition. In essence, “Reagan looked to religion less as a source of divine guidance than as a bulwark against the power of the state” (32).

Since Reagan believed that removing the stifling yoke of government off the neck of the people was of paramount importance, it is no wonder that Reagan came to believe that Communism was the worst sort of government that could be foisted on humanity. His anathema against Communism and to its liberal sympathizers was sharpened by the Hiss-Chambers congressional hearings of the early 1950’s. It was also influenced by two particular books. One book was Chamber’s book, “Witness as the book that would shape his political outlook” (10). In addition like many conservatives, Reagan read F. A. Hayek’s book Road to Serfdom and “accepted Hayek’s thesis that liberalism paves the way for communism by institutionalizing a centralized state” (110). Diggins recounted the numerous times throughout Regan’s life that he railed against the evils of Communism, which led to his well-publicized “evil empire” speech in 1983. This speech finalized Reagan’s reputation as the anti-Communist jingoistic cowboy. Diggins cogently showed in his book that it was Reagan’s life long vitriol against Communism, was the only cold war president that could reach out to the Soviet Union and substantially reduce the nuclear weapons arsenal.

Diggins did a masterful job of showing how Reagan, while in the hospital recovering from the wounds he received from the attempt on his life in 1981, awakened to the realization that he had to do his utmost in reducing the chances of the world being destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. Diggins found Reagan was completely misunderstood by liberals who characterized him as a warmonger. Reagan came to see the folly of Mutual Assured Destruction, which had been the cornerstone of America’s nuclear deterrence. For the always-optimistic Reagan this new mission was akin to Nixon opening China. Only Reagan who called the Soviet Union the “evil empire,” could befuddle his neo-conservative supporters and liberal critics time after time as he worked to get Mikhail Gorbachev to trust him and ultimately become his partner in arms reduction. In doing so, Reagan was instrumental in paving the way for the end to the cold war, and ultimately the collapse of the Soviet Union. In his book Diggins recounted one of the most poignant speeches Reagan, also known as the great communicator, ever delivered, which took place in 1988 to students at Moscow State University. It was Reagan, the optimist and defender of liberty and not the warmonger and staunch anti-Communist that addressed the audience. Reagan spoke about the new revolution that would sweep across the globe, and a technological revolution that computers would bring, which would ultimately transform humanity with the new information age.

In conclusion Diggins’ book, though written when very little of Reagan’s presidential papers have been accessed by historians, has captured the essence of the ideas and life experiences that motivated Reagan to act the way he did. Since Diggins’ book focused more on the psychological, religious, and philosophical makeup of Ronald Reagan and not on the details of his administration, it will be valuable for years to come by students studying Reagan and the Cold War era. It is doubtful that Diggins’ book will need much revision as more presidential papers are released.

As a graduate student I recommend this book for anyone interested in Reagan, American History, Cold War History.

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Theodore Rex (Modern Library Paperbacks) By Edmund Morris

Why Buy A Theodore Rex (Modern Library Paperbacks) By Edmund Morris?
In this lively biography, Edmund Morris returns to the gifted, energetic, and thoroughly controversial man whom the novelist Henry James called King Theodore. In his two terms as president of the United States, Roosevelt forged an American empire, and he behaved as if it was his destiny. In this sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Morris charts Roosevelts accomplishments: the acquisition of the Panama Canal and the Philippines, the creation of national parks and monuments, and more. Collaring Capital and Labor in either hand, Morris writes, Roosevelt made few friends, but he usually got what he wanted–and earned an enduring place in history.

Morris combines a fine command of the eras big issues with an appreciation for the daily minutiae involved in governing a nation. Less controversially inventive, but no less readable, than the Ronald Reagan biography Dutch, Theodore Rex gives readers new reason both to admire and fault an American phenomenon. –Gregory McNamee

Customer Reviews & Opinions

Roosevelt the President, Roosevelt the Man
Edmund Morris’ follow up to “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” is every bit as informative and entertaining. “Theodore Rex” picks up right where the first volume left off, with Roosevelt assuming the presidency after the assassination of President McKinley. Morris brings his considerable skills to bear as he examines Roosevelt’s roles in the key issues and events of the day: The Venezuelan Crisis, the Coal Strike, the Panama Canal endeavor, the Russo-Japanese Peace Conference, the Conservation Convention, and many others. Roosevelt’s political fortunes are masterfully offered alongside his personal triumphs and trials. Though not as action packed as the first volume, “Theodore Rex” nevertheless offers a well written and fast paced narrative that is a joy to read.

Is Morris going to complete the trilogy?
Is there any word as to whether or not Edmund Morris is going to complete the planned trilogy? I’d love to know more about TR’s hunting trips to Africa and South America as well as the election of 1912…

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An American Life By Ronald Reagan

From Publishers Weekly
Reagan presents anecdotes about his family, details his ideology, tells of his presidential candidacy and describes his eight years in the White House. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
The Christian Science Monitor An American Life is filled with Ronald Reagans good humor and goodwill. — Review

Why Buy A An American Life By Ronald Reagan?

In this remarkable autobiography, Ronald Reagan presents a definitive personal account of his historic presidency. With uncompromising candor, modesty, and wit, he tells the story of his life — public and private — and reveals the events that shaped his reluctant candidacy and the decision-making process that led to his first nomination; the unseen dangers of Gorbachevs first visit to America; startling facts about top-secret meetings involving heads of state; his frustrations with Congress; and his relationships with the members of his Cabinet.

Here are the behind-the-scenes details of the great themes and dramatic crises marking Reagans eight years in office, from Lebanon to Grenada, from the struggle to achieve arms control to tax reform, and his unprecedented personal diplomacy with major foreign leaders. His narrative is full of new insights and often surprising revelations regarding his innermost feelings about life in the White House, the assassination attempt, his family — and the enduring love between him and his wife Nancy.

An American Life is an inspiring American success story, a brilliant self-portrait, and a compelling and significant work of history.

Customer Reviews & Opinions

Greatest American President In My Lifetime
This is great. He was an awesome president and we should have cloned him.

Amazing Read
This book is a fantastic read! Includes tons of interesting stories and powerful insight to American history! Enjoy!

Truly awesome autobiography
Ronald Reagan writes in such a style that it is as if he is talking directly to the reader. He has a wonderful and balanced execution of detail and storytelling that made the 726 pages fly by. I really enjoyed this book. I am a fan of President Reagan and believe he restored the dignity, integrity, hope, and respect that America had previously lost.

Reagan starts the book detailing his early life in Dixon, Illinois and takes the reader on a journey through his struggles with teenage romance, pursuing a college education, being a lifeguard, work as a sports broadcaster, the great depression, his father’s struggles with substance abuse and also details how charity used to work. He discusses his dealings with Hollywood as a struggling actor, he briefly accounts his marriage to Jayne Wymann (respectfully), his town-hall style talks for GE, his decision to switch parties and pursue the Governorship of California, the ethics behind his decision to not give up his run for the presidential nomination in ‘76 and ‘80. He talks candidly about his presidency, his dealing with the Russians and does not disguise his true feelings and struggles with Communism. He discloses what happened during the Reykjavik talks and how upset he was at Gorbachev for allowing the talks to disintegrate, and his decision to keep the words “tear down this wall” in his famous Berlin speech.

His account of such events in awesome detail is amazing and the other reviewers who choose to mock such memory, siting his later struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, obviously have no understanding of the disease and purposely don’t site the copyright date of 1990 (a full 4 years before Reagan was diagnosed). It is also a weak attempt to tear down a man and ideology they refuse to honestly understand, yet try desperately to discredit.

I highly recommend this book. It is a wonderful and true account of how one man with courage can make a difference.

Fantastic book
This book was brand new for a great price. I recieved it in only a few days. It is an excellent book. Thank You!

What’s Not To Like?
A great portrayal of his life – by the man himself.

A riveting read.

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Renegade: The Making Of A President By Richard Wolffe

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Posts Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Ted Widmer Given how often Barack Obama has been compared to John F. Kennedy, it makes sense that we now have a Camelot-style report on the great campaign of 08. Kennedys election was a literary as well as a political watershed, inspiring writers whose taut and sardonic style mirrored that of JFK himself. Not long after the election, Theodore White broke big with the publication of The Making of the President, 1960, a classic of political reporting that covered the campaign with a novelists sense of drama and a stenographers sense of detail. It has been imitated many times since, including by White himself, who dutifully put himself through the same paces every four years, sweating out similar books all the way through 1972 but never duplicating the caffeinated energy of the original. Despite hundreds of campaign books since then, no one else has either. More consciously than most, Richard Wolffe has now entered the Teddy White sweepstakes with Renegade: The Making of a President. The connection is right there in the title, and from the very first words there is little doubt what he is up to. Wolffe covered the Obama campaign for Newsweek, and at times he seems to be channeling White (who had been a Time reporter), referring to his protagonist as the candidate and deploying short, dramatic sentences that heighten the air of mystery about the transfer of power. Wolffes first sentence (Election day starts, in the small hours, where the candidate has spent most of his last 626 days: on a plane.), like Whites (It was invisible, as always.), comes straight out of Hemingway 101. Renegade stakes an audacious claim to its own importance and largely lives up to it. Like White, Wolffe was lucky in several ways, beginning with the fact that the campaign he chose to cover was exceptionally historic. But he was also granted unusual access to the candidate, and one of the books more interesting episodes reveals that it was Obama who came up with the idea of Wolffes project, nudging him forward with a casual remark (Why cant you write a book about it? Like Theodore White. Those are great books.) Renegade tells the whole amazing story, restating how unlikely it seemed, only two years ago, that President Obama would ever be identified as such. When the campaign started, he was 99th out of 100 senators in seniority. In 2000, he couldnt even gain admission to the Democratic convention, and his credit card was declined when he tried to rent a car in L.A. Wolffe explores all of the ups and downs of 2008, relaying anecdotes both new and familiar. There are not quite as many flashbulb revelations as I expected, beyond a horrifying glimpse into just how directionless the Bush White House was at the time of the economic collapse last fall and some provocative suggestions that the Obama marriage was in trouble around 2000, when his political ambitions were surfacing. But the book is clear, concise and well written, effectively retelling a story that still astonishes us, even after we all lived through it last year. Which is not quite to say that this is The Making of the President, 2008. Wolffe lacks the voracious appetite for detail that characterized Whites books, and he spends almost no time on the other aspirants. He also deviates from Whites model of telling the story the old-fashioned way, from beginning to end. The chapters are lively and well-informed, but some continuity is missing, and quite a few state primaries are ignored or dumbed down. White spent a great deal of attention on the power structures of each region: the urban bosses who would deliver votes in return for backroom promises, the Southern overlords of the Democratic party, the fissures within the Republican Party. This book lacks that sort of comprehensive detail, focusing instead on its protagonist, who is admittedly fascinating — but so was JFK, and White went well beyond him. No particular light is shed on the big efforts in Pennsylvania and North Carolina — and none at all in less scrutinized places like Missouri, where Obama narrowly beat Hillary Clinton with 49 percent of the vote to 48 percent, a crucial step on the way to his victory. The chief drama revolves around Obama-Clinton more than Obama-McCain, and we are shown glimpses of the agitation that Clintons perseverance was causing inside the Obama team. But we are told little of the genuine policy differences that separated them or of the random factors (the spike in gas prices) that also entered into the complex calculus of 2008. Still, the book will please the millions who lived and died with every test of the campaign and should satisfy a hunger to know more about the person at the center of these gravity-defying events. To some extent, Wolffe faces a problem that all writers about Obama have, namely, that it is difficult to write better about the man than Obama himself has already done. But he effectively explores the paradox of the quiet renegade (Obamas Secret Service handle) who rewrote all of the rules of American politics while barely breaking a sweat. Obama, the son of an anthropologist, offers gnomic observations about the political process (interestingly, he admires Ronald Reagan), keeps his head when those around him have lost theirs and retains his likeability throughout, even when complaining that all media scrutiny reminds him of a public colonoscopy. If so, this book will signal a return to the proctologist, but only for a relatively harmless check-up. Like White, Wolffe obviously favors the man he dubs the candidate. But to his credit, he points out the occasional imperfection (some fudging on the issues of campaign finance and NAFTA, for example) and reveals a politician ready to play very hard to win, even while claiming to be above the politics of anger. Wolffe flavors the book with his own opinions — including the arresting thought that the intemperate sermons of Obamas then-pastor, Jeremiah Wright, might easily have been discovered before the Iowa caucus, which would likely have boxed in Obama at the start. Near the beginning of their collaboration, Obama asked Wolffe whether there would be enough drama in a story that merely reflected a successful realization of a vision (What happens if we just had a plan and then went out and said, lets execute it?). That, in a nutshell, is exactly what happened in 2008. But, yes, there is enough drama, and then some, in Renegade. It is surely not the final word — but it is as close as we are likely to get until Obamas aides begin to write their version of an extraordinary American story that is still unfolding.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
“The first of the President Obama books–and a good one–insightful, thorough, and straight.”
—Ben Bradlee, Washington Post

“If you really want to know what happened inside the Obama campaign, this is the one book that will take you there. My jaw dropped time and time again reading details that, despite the coverage, were never revealed in the long campaign. A clear-eyed, up-close look at the campaign, Renegade is the one Obama book that should not be missed.”
—Michele Norris, All Things Considered

“A superb achievement. With an almost painterly eye, compelling insights, and extraordinary access to Barack Obama and his inner circle, Richard Wolffe’s Renegade tells the hidden, dramatic story of the 2008 campaign and also reveals much we did not know about the 44th president’s life before politics. Wolffe’s brisk, well-written narrative is fully in the tradition of Theodore White and Richard Ben Cramer, capturing a pivotal presidential

Why Buy A Renegade: The Making Of A President By Richard Wolffe?
Before the White House and Air Force One, before the TV ads and the enormous rallies, there was the real Barack Obama: a man wrestling with the momentous decision to run for the presidency, feeling torn about leaving behind a young family, and figuring out how to win the biggest prize in politics.

This book is the previously untold and epic story of how a political newcomer with no money and an alien name grew into the world’s most powerful leader. But it is also a uniquely intimate portrait of the person behind the iconic posters and the Secret Service code name Renegade.

Drawing on a dozen unplugged interviews with the candidate and president, as well as twenty-one months covering his campaign as it traveled from coast to coast, Richard Wolffe answers the simple yet enduring question about Barack Obama: Who is he?

Based on Wolffe’s unprecedented access to Obama, Renegade reveals the making of a president, both on the campaign trail and before he ran for high office. It explains how the politician who emerged in an extraordinary election learned the personal and political skills to succeed during his youth and early career. With cool self-discipline, calculated risk taking, and simple storytelling, Obama developed the strategies he would need to survive the onslaught of the Clintons and John McCain, and build a multimillion-dollar machine to win a historic contest.

In Renegade, Richard Wolffe shares with us his front-row seat at Obama’s announcement to run for president on a frigid day in Springfield, and his victory speech on a warm night in Chicago. We fly on the candidate’s plane and ride in his bus on an odyssey across a country in crisis; stand next to him at a bar on the night he secures the nomination; and are backstage as he delivers his convention speech to a stadium crowd and a transfixed national audience. From a teacher’s office in Iowa to the Oval Office in Washington, we see and hear Barack Obama with an immediacy and honesty never witnessed before.

Renegade provides not only an account of Obama’s triumphs, but also examines his many personal and political trials. We see Obama wrestling with race and politics, as well as his former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. We see him struggling with life as a presidential candidate, a campaign that falters for most of its first year, and his reaction to a surprise defeat in the New Hampshire primary. And we see him relying on his personal experience, as well as meticulous polling, to pass the presidential test in foreign and economic affairs.

Renegade is an essential guide to understanding President Barack Obama and his trusted inner circle of aides and friends. It is also a riveting and enlightening first draft of history and political psychology.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews & Opinions

The Campaign BEHIND The 2008 Presidential Campaign
Having watched the events as they actually unfolded, I did not expect to be so moved by RENEGADE — but even in the era of the 24/7 news cycle, there are still nuggets which don’t surface until after the fact. They’re all here.

Exemplary reporting and graceful writing do not always walk hand-in-hand — and from my own journalistic experience, I know how difficult it is not to “fall in love” with a compelling subject. Mr. Wolffe does a superb job of placing you, the reader, in the position of the proverbial fly-on-the-wall … and succeeds mightily in answering the question on so many people’s minds: “Who Is Barack Obama?”

Great food for a political jukie
Okay before I review this book, I will state I am one of the Kool aid drinkers. I am a political junkie and I am a huge Obama supporter. So, I got what I expected when I picked this book up. I found it so interesting, the behind the scenes look at the campaign, the depth and understanding of President Obama, and the excitement of reliving the campaign that had the right ending in my perspective.

Mr. Wolffe takes the reader from the very beginning, the decision to run, the people saying he couldn’t win, all the ups and downs of the campaign, and then tries to explain how and why it was just the right person for the time and place…I don’t know, just a good book, worth the read if you are interested in politics and may teach you something about our system if you are not.

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Renegade: The Making Of A President By Richard Wolffe

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Posts Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Ted Widmer Given how often Barack Obama has been compared to John F. Kennedy, it makes sense that we now have a Camelot-style report on the great campaign of 08. Kennedys election was a literary as well as a political watershed, inspiring writers whose taut and sardonic style mirrored that of JFK himself. Not long after the election, Theodore White broke big with the publication of The Making of the President, 1960, a classic of political reporting that covered the campaign with a novelists sense of drama and a stenographers sense of detail. It has been imitated many times since, including by White himself, who dutifully put himself through the same paces every four years, sweating out similar books all the way through 1972 but never duplicating the caffeinated energy of the original. Despite hundreds of campaign books since then, no one else has either. More consciously than most, Richard Wolffe has now entered the Teddy White sweepstakes with Renegade: The Making of a President. The connection is right there in the title, and from the very first words there is little doubt what he is up to. Wolffe covered the Obama campaign for Newsweek, and at times he seems to be channeling White (who had been a Time reporter), referring to his protagonist as the candidate and deploying short, dramatic sentences that heighten the air of mystery about the transfer of power. Wolffes first sentence (Election day starts, in the small hours, where the candidate has spent most of his last 626 days: on a plane.), like Whites (It was invisible, as always.), comes straight out of Hemingway 101. Renegade stakes an audacious claim to its own importance and largely lives up to it. Like White, Wolffe was lucky in several ways, beginning with the fact that the campaign he chose to cover was exceptionally historic. But he was also granted unusual access to the candidate, and one of the books more interesting episodes reveals that it was Obama who came up with the idea of Wolffes project, nudging him forward with a casual remark (Why cant you write a book about it? Like Theodore White. Those are great books.) Renegade tells the whole amazing story, restating how unlikely it seemed, only two years ago, that President Obama would ever be identified as such. When the campaign started, he was 99th out of 100 senators in seniority. In 2000, he couldnt even gain admission to the Democratic convention, and his credit card was declined when he tried to rent a car in L.A. Wolffe explores all of the ups and downs of 2008, relaying anecdotes both new and familiar. There are not quite as many flashbulb revelations as I expected, beyond a horrifying glimpse into just how directionless the Bush White House was at the time of the economic collapse last fall and some provocative suggestions that the Obama marriage was in trouble around 2000, when his political ambitions were surfacing. But the book is clear, concise and well written, effectively retelling a story that still astonishes us, even after we all lived through it last year. Which is not quite to say that this is The Making of the President, 2008. Wolffe lacks the voracious appetite for detail that characterized Whites books, and he spends almost no time on the other aspirants. He also deviates from Whites model of telling the story the old-fashioned way, from beginning to end. The chapters are lively and well-informed, but some continuity is missing, and quite a few state primaries are ignored or dumbed down. White spent a great deal of attention on the power structures of each region: the urban bosses who would deliver votes in return for backroom promises, the Southern overlords of the Democratic party, the fissures within the Republican Party. This book lacks that sort of comprehensive detail, focusing instead on its protagonist, who is admittedly fascinating — but so was JFK, and White went well beyond him. No particular light is shed on the big efforts in Pennsylvania and North Carolina — and none at all in less scrutinized places like Missouri, where Obama narrowly beat Hillary Clinton with 49 percent of the vote to 48 percent, a crucial step on the way to his victory. The chief drama revolves around Obama-Clinton more than Obama-McCain, and we are shown glimpses of the agitation that Clintons perseverance was causing inside the Obama team. But we are told little of the genuine policy differences that separated them or of the random factors (the spike in gas prices) that also entered into the complex calculus of 2008. Still, the book will please the millions who lived and died with every test of the campaign and should satisfy a hunger to know more about the person at the center of these gravity-defying events. To some extent, Wolffe faces a problem that all writers about Obama have, namely, that it is difficult to write better about the man than Obama himself has already done. But he effectively explores the paradox of the quiet renegade (Obamas Secret Service handle) who rewrote all of the rules of American politics while barely breaking a sweat. Obama, the son of an anthropologist, offers gnomic observations about the political process (interestingly, he admires Ronald Reagan), keeps his head when those around him have lost theirs and retains his likeability throughout, even when complaining that all media scrutiny reminds him of a public colonoscopy. If so, this book will signal a return to the proctologist, but only for a relatively harmless check-up. Like White, Wolffe obviously favors the man he dubs the candidate. But to his credit, he points out the occasional imperfection (some fudging on the issues of campaign finance and NAFTA, for example) and reveals a politician ready to play very hard to win, even while claiming to be above the politics of anger. Wolffe flavors the book with his own opinions — including the arresting thought that the intemperate sermons of Obamas then-pastor, Jeremiah Wright, might easily have been discovered before the Iowa caucus, which would likely have boxed in Obama at the start. Near the beginning of their collaboration, Obama asked Wolffe whether there would be enough drama in a story that merely reflected a successful realization of a vision (What happens if we just had a plan and then went out and said, lets execute it?). That, in a nutshell, is exactly what happened in 2008. But, yes, there is enough drama, and then some, in Renegade. It is surely not the final word — but it is as close as we are likely to get until Obamas aides begin to write their version of an extraordinary American story that is still unfolding.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Review
“The first of the President Obama books–and a good one–insightful, thorough, and straight.”
—Ben Bradlee, Washington Post

“If you really want to know what happened inside the Obama campaign, this is the one book that will take you there. My jaw dropped time and time again reading details that, despite the coverage, were never revealed in the long campaign. A clear-eyed, up-close look at the campaign, Renegade is the one Obama book that should not be missed.”
—Michele Norris, All Things Considered

“A superb achievement. With an almost painterly eye, compelling insights, and extraordinary access to Barack Obama and his inner circle, Richard Wolffe’s Renegade tells the hidden, dramatic story of the 2008 campaign and also reveals much we did not know about the 44th president’s life before politics. Wolffe’s brisk, well-written narrative is fully in the tradition of Theodore White and Richard Ben Cramer, capturing a pivotal presidential contest dominated by one of the most luminous figures in modern American history.”
—Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage

“Many journalist

Why Buy A Renegade: The Making Of A President By Richard Wolffe?
Before the White House and Air Force One, before the TV ads and the enormous rallies, there was the real Barack Obama: a man wrestling with the momentous decision to run for the presidency, feeling torn about leaving behind a young family, and figuring out how to win the biggest prize in politics.

This book is the previously untold and epic story of how a political newcomer with no money and an alien name grew into the world’s most powerful leader. But it is also a uniquely intimate portrait of the person behind the iconic posters and the Secret Service code name Renegade.

Drawing on a dozen unplugged interviews with the candidate and president, as well as twenty-one months covering his campaign as it traveled from coast to coast, Richard Wolffe answers the simple yet enduring question about Barack Obama: Who is he?

Based on Wolffe’s unprecedented access to Obama, Renegade reveals the making of a president, both on the campaign trail and before he ran for high office. It explains how the politician who emerged in an extraordinary election learned the personal and political skills to succeed during his youth and early career. With cool self-discipline, calculated risk taking, and simple storytelling, Obama developed the strategies he would need to survive the onslaught of the Clintons and John McCain, and build a multimillion-dollar machine to win a historic contest.

In Renegade, Richard Wolffe shares with us his front-row seat at Obama’s announcement to run for president on a frigid day in Springfield, and his victory speech on a warm night in Chicago. We fly on the candidate’s plane and ride in his bus on an odyssey across a country in crisis; stand next to him at a bar on the night he secures the nomination; and are backstage as he delivers his convention speech to a stadium crowd and a transfixed national audience. From a teacher’s office in Iowa to the Oval Office in Washington, we see and hear Barack Obama with an immediacy and honesty never witnessed before.

Renegade provides not only an account of Obama’s triumphs, but also examines his many personal and political trials. We see Obama wrestling with race and politics, as well as his former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. We see him struggling with life as a presidential candidate, a campaign that falters for most of its first year, and his reaction to a surprise defeat in the New Hampshire primary. And we see him relying on his personal experience, as well as meticulous polling, to pass the presidential test in foreign and economic affairs.
Renegade is an essential guide to understanding President Barack Obama and his trusted inner circle of aides and friends. It is also a riveting and enlightening first draft of history and political psychology.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews & Opinions

The Campaign BEHIND The 2008 Presidential Campaign
Having watched the events as they actually unfolded, I did not expect to be so moved by RENEGADE — but even in the era of the 24/7 news cycle, there are still nuggets which don’t surface until after the fact. They’re all here.

Exemplary reporting and graceful writing do not always walk hand-in-hand — and from my own journalistic experience, I know how difficult it is not to “fall in love” with a compelling subject. Mr. Wolffe does a superb job of placing you, the reader, in the position of the proverbial fly-on-the-wall … and succeeds mightily in answering the question on so many people’s minds: “Who Is Barack Obama?”

Great food for a political jukie
Okay before I review this book, I will state I am one of the Kool aid drinkers. I am a political junkie and I am a huge Obama supporter. So, I got what I expected when I picked this book up. I found it so interesting, the behind the scenes look at the campaign, the depth and understanding of President Obama, and the excitement of reliving the campaign that had the right ending in my perspective.

Mr. Wolffe takes the reader from the very beginning, the decision to run, the people saying he couldn’t win, all the ups and downs of the campaign, and then tries to explain how and why it was just the right person for the time and place…I don’t know, just a good book, worth the read if you are interested in politics and may teach you something about our system if you are not.

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