Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics
-
- £179.99
-
- £179.99
Publisher Description
Many Americans believe Barak Obama represents a hopeful future for America. But does he also reflect the American politics of the past? This book offers the broadest and best-informed understanding on the meaning of the "Obama phenomenon" to date. Paul Street was on the ground throughout the Iowa campaign, and his stories of the rising Obama phenomenon are poignant. Yet the author's background in American political history allows him to explore the deeper meanings of Obama's remarkable political career. He looks at Obama in relation to contemporary issues of class, race, war, and empire. He considers Obama in the context of our nation's political history, with comparisons to FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, and other leaders. Street finds that the Obama persona, crafted by campaign consultants and filtered through dominant media trends, masks the "change" candidate's adherence to long-prevailing power structures and party doctrines. He shows how American political culture has produced misperceptions by the electorate of Obama's positions and values. Obama is no magical exception to the narrow-spectrum electoral system and ideological culture that have done so much to define and limit the American political tradition. Yet the author suggests key ways in which Obama potentially advances democratic transformation. Street makes recommendations on how citizens can productively respond to and act upon Obama's influence and the broader historical and social forces that have produced his celebrity and relevance. He also lays out a real agenda for change for the new presidential administration, one that addresses the recent failures of democratic politics.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Street, Paul. Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics. Paradigm. Oct. 2008. c.272p. index. POL SCI~ Marred by heavily biased analysis, this polemic could be useful to those collections that already have more objective accounts; however, libraries on limited budgets searching for a balanced treatment of Obama are advised to skip it. Background: Street (Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis) trains a critical lens on the experience, associations, positions, and statements of Barack Obama. The author is an unapologetic critic of "the Establishment"--in the tradition of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky--and he posits that Obama's positions aren't liberal enough to justify the candidate's assertions that he can bring substantive change and that Obama is actually content to compromise to meet the needs of the Establishment rather than those of ordinary Americans. Drawing on a raft of public documents and his own knowledge of Chicago politics, Street places Obama as just another candidate beholden to the moneyed interests in our political system. --Thomas J. Baldino, Ph.D., Wilkes Univ., PA.