Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House - Softcover

Heilemann, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0670918032 ISBN 13: 9780670918034

Publisher: VIKIN, 2010

Synopsis

The American presidential election of 2008 was as riveting a spectacle as modern politics has ever produced. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton - and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial, at times erratic, performance of John McCain. The mesmerising and bewildering emergence of Sarah Palin. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines has yet been told. Race of a Lifetime pulls back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. How did Obama convince himself that, against enormous odds, he should be, and could be, the nation's first African-American president? How did the tumultuous relationship between the Clintons shape - and warp - Hillary's supposedly unstoppable bid to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? What drove her husband's loss of composure and devastating political miscalculations? Why did McCain put the unknown, untested governor of Alaska on the Republican ticket? And was Palin merely as out of her depth as she appeared - or troubled in more unsettling ways? Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Race of a Lifetime answers those questions and more. Vivid and novelistic, fast-paced and character-driven, this is a tour de force: an intimate, often hilarious, sometimes shocking portrait of the quest for power.

About this title

About the Author

John Heilemann and Mark Halperin are two of the most acclaimed political reporters in the US, with close access to the candidates and their teams. Heilemann is the political columnist at New York magazine. He is a National Magazine Award finalist and a former staff writer for the New Yorker, the Economist, and Wired. Halperin is editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time, founding editor of The Page, and former political director of ABC News.

Review

The most exciting political book of recent years. Election reporting will never be the same again -- Andrew Adonis * News Statesman, Books of the Year * Welcome to the meat-grinder, flash-incinerator race to be the 44th President of the United States * The Times * Incendiary, intriguing, nuanced, compelling. A fantastically detailed and gossipy affair -- Gaby Wood * Observer * A spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations and allegation. Leaves the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times * Consistently fascinating... every bit as good as Theordore White's The Making of a President -- Anthony Howard * Daily Telegraph * Astounding, astonishing. Sleazy, personal, intrusive, shocking - and terribly compulsive. A thoroughly researched, well-paced and very amusing read. High-quality political porn * Economist * The best account of the triumph of 2008 -- Jonathan Powell * New Statesman, Books of the Year * Great fun to read. A wealth of insight. Real fly-on-the-wall journalism, where the authors claim to know not just what people said, but what they were thinking -- Andy McSmith * Independent * Compulsively readable. You can't put it down * Los Angeles Times *

About this edition

• Publisher: VIKIN
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0670918032
• ISBN 13: 9780670918034
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448