Changing Times: The Life of Barack Obama by Glen Jeansonne & David Luhrssen

Since2001, political books penned by American liberals have flourished, but mosthave been critiques of the Bush-Cheney administration, the attacks on 9/11 andthe Iraq War, interrupted briefly by the 2004 Kerry campaign. The 2008presidential campaign of Barack Obama, however, gave hopeful writers a newtopic on which to tread: the extraordinary success of Obama’s campaign and theintriguing experiences of his formative years that shaped him into the leaderhe is today.

With Changing Times: The Life of Barack Obama, journalistDavid Luhrssen and award-winning historian and University ofWisconsin-Milwaukee professor Glen Jeansonne emerge above the deluge of Obamabooks with a perceptive, smoothly written and fair-minded biographical portraitof Barack Obama that not only tells the man’s unique and fascinating lifestory, but how it fits in the context of social, cultural and politicalhistory.

The 158-pagebiography is compiled from books, including Obama’s own, as well as thereporting of the political writers of newspapers and magazines. As the authorsdescribe in their “Essay on Sources,” they patched together, synthesized, andinterpreted reams of material to write an unconventional academic book designedfor readers at all levels.

Luhrssenand Jeansonne follow Obama from his birth to a mixed race couple in Honoluluin1961, to his brief sojourn in Indonesia, and back to Hawaii for high school.As Obama attends college, then becomes the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, the black experienceforms just one backdrop to the story. Readers journey with Obama from Chicago’sSouth Side where he was a community organizer and civil rights attorney, to theclassrooms of the University of Chicago Law School where he taughtconstitutional law; to the Illinois legislature where he served fourconsecutive two-year terms as a state senator; to the United States Senate, onthe grueling campaign trail and, ultimately, to the White House.

One ofthe many virtues of Changing Times isits justice, an uncompromising yet tolerant account of hope and fruition, charmand aloofness, scholastic achievement and political inexperience. This is nosmall achievement for Luhrssen and Jeansonne: Barack Obama has become anAmerican Idol, a bareback rider on a cyclone of change.

Dave Luhrssen and Glen Jeansonne will be speakingat Boswell Books on Thursday, March 18 from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.