An unassailable case that, in the eyes of history, Barack Obama will be viewed as one of America’s best and most accomplished presidents.
Over the course of eight years, Barack Obama has amassed an array of outstanding achievements. His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to millions who previously could not afford it, negotiated an historic nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking international climate accord, reined in Wall Street and crafted a new vision of racial progress. He has done all of this despite a left that frequently disdained him as a sellout, and a hysterical right that did everything possible to destroy his agenda even when they agreed with what he was doing.
Now, as the page turns to our next Commander in Chief, Jonathan Chait, acclaimed as one of the most incisive and meticulous political commentators in America, digs deep into Obama’s record on major policy fronts—economics, the environment, domestic reform, health care, race, foreign policy, and civil rights—to demonstrate why history will judge our forty-fourth president as among the greatest in history.
Audacity does not shy away from Obama’s failures, most notably in foreign policy. Yet Chait convincingly shows that President Obama has accomplished what candidate Obama said he would, despite overwhelming opposition—and that the hopes of those who voted for him have not been dashed despite the smokescreen of extremist propaganda and the limits of short-term perspective.
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“A sturdy defense of the past eight years and an attack on left-wing Americans who moan about Obama’s timidity. And in this endeavor it is a rip-roaring success. Chait tells the Obama story with enormous sympathy but with enough detachment to make it credible.”
— Times (Lonon)
“A timely, trenchant, and relentlessly argued book…Not only did Obama change America for the better, Chait writes, he also cemented a new policy infrastructure that will resist Trump’s efforts to tear it down.”
— New York Times Book Review“Chait’s command of policy and politics and his clarity of thought, guarantee that Audacity will remain an essential starting point for those assessing the Obama presidency.”
— Washington Monthly“Chait’s brilliant new book, Audacity, upends the conventional wisdom of the Washington commentariat…[with] a compelling case that he was one of the most successful presidents of modern times.”
— Guardian (London)“A well-organized, clearly written case that will be valuable to future historians in their assessments.”
— Kirkus ReviewsBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Jonathan Chait is the senior editor at the New Republic and writes the magazine’s signature TRB column. He is a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times and has written for the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the Atlantic Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, American Prospect, Commentary, Washington Monthly, and Reason. He lives in Washington, DC.
Mike Chamberlain is an actor and voice-over performer in Los Angeles whose audiobook narration has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards. His voice credits range from radio commercials and television narration to animation and video game characters. Stage trained at Boston College, he has performed works from Shakespeare and the classics to contemporary drama and comedy.