Reading Obam Dreams, Hope, And The American Political...

Amy Rel Professor Richard Garcia History 3553 American Intellectual History 16 March 2015 Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition The main focus of the intellectual biography, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition by James T. Kloppenberg, is on President Obama s ideas, how he thinks, but also his views on American politics. Kloppenberg describes in detail the events throughout Obama s life that have influenced his thinking and molded him into the type of politician, and man, he is today. He explains that Obama s main philosophy throughout his scholarship has been pragmatism. In the introduction of the book, Kloppenberg says â€Å"Barack is a product of three distinct developments: 1. The history of American democracy, the long unfinished project stretching from the seventeenth century establishment of English colonies through the achievements of the civil rights and feminist movements, that produced the institutions and the cultural characteristics that made possible Obama s rise. 2. America s principal contribution to the Western philosophical tradition, the philosophy of pragmatism that originated over a century ago in the writings of James and Dewey, has provided a sturdy base for Obama s sensibility. 3. Obama s sensibility reflects the intellectual upheavals that occurred on American campuses during the two decades he spent studying at Occidental College, Columbia University, and the Harvard Law School, and