Governing in Prose: Realpolitik and Idealism in Obama’s First Term

by Eric Foner

Eric Foner's review of the first volume of Obama's memoir focuses on the conflict between pragmatism and idealism, and concludes that the 45th President erred in offering bailouts to bankers and expecting cooperation from Republicans, mistakes that crippled his presidency and set the stage for Trump. 

A Brief History of Presidential Memoirs

Presidential historian Craig Fehrman says that presidents in the early republican period shunned writing memoirs as vain and self-promoting. The quality of many subsequent presidential books suggests they were on to something. How will the recent first volume of Obama's memoirs be received?