The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. David Remnick

The rise of Barack Obama is one of the great stories of this century: a defining moment for America, and one with truly global resonance. This is the book of his phenomenal journey to election, updated in paperback to cover his first two extraordinary years in Office.

Through extensive on-the-record interviews with friends and teachers, mentors and disparagers, family members and Obama himself, David Remnick has put together a nuanced, unexpected and masterly portrait of the man who was determined to become the first African-American President.

Most importantly, The Bridge argues that Obama imagined and fashioned an identity for himself against the epic drama of race in America. In a way that Obama''s own memoirs cannot, it examines both the personal and political elements of the story, and gives shape not only to a decisive period of history, but also to the way it crucially influenced, animated and motivated a gifted and complex man.