Barack Obama

Leo Meng

This book shows Barack Obama's growth from a young child to be the US president.

A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He was not so clever a student than any other student at Columbia University.At the same time, he was the oldest student at 30. But his teacher said he had the ability to do better so he applied for a scholarship.

Unfortunately, he was a black man and subject to discrimination from white people. His mother was a white women and his father was a black man. When he was studying at Columbia,his father died in an accident.So at that time,he felt very depressed and turned to drinking and drugs.He was sad because black people hardly ever found a job in America and he felt lonely after his father died.

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to attend Occidental College. In February 1981, he made his first public speech, calling for Occidental's divestment from South Africa. Later in 1981 he transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations and graduated with a B.A. In 1983, He worked for a year at the Business International Corporation, and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.He had a good job and a high salary as a lawyer. But he was interested in politics, which he did not want to give up. Suddenly, the 911 event happened in New York and he began care more about the political.Through his industrious work,he won the election with 54% percent support.

Obama was an early opponent of the George W. Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq. On October 2, 2002, the day President Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War, Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally, and spoke out against the war. He addressed another anti-war rally in March 2003 and told the crowd that "it's not too late" to stop the war.

Undoubtedly the economy was a crucial issue, thus he provided a plan to solve the unemployment problem.

My feeling is I believe the American people's eyesight is true.I think there will be challenge and frustration. Maybe it is difficult to be a American present because there is the demand to be beneficial for all the America citizens and the political career is a long one.

I adapted to reading this book because it was easy to understand for I know the background of the people it is about.