Obama: The Call of History

NEW EDITION WITH EXPANDED TEXT, WITH A FOREWORD BY JON MEACHAM: The original edition of Obama: The Call of History (2017) was the first full-fledged pictorial history of President Barack Obama's two terms in office to be published as he stepped down. Now comes an updated version that expands the narrative account and adds new perspective from author Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times.

In this new edition, Baker reports on new details about the final months of the Obama presidency as Russia sought to intervene in American democracy, and assesses the impact of Donald Trump's presidency on Barack Obama's legacy. Baker chronicles a period of great hope, tumult, accomplishments, and, yes, failure. This is the story of a young president who took on the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, forged a controversial health care program, watched anxiously in the Situation Room after approving the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and endured mid-term election defeats. In a presidency buffeted by one crisis after another, he struggled with the Syrian civil war, a Russian invasion of its neighbor, the rise of the Islamic State, and, at home, often violent racial strife and recalcitrant Congress.

"His first line in the history books was written the day he won office as the first African-American president, but he was determined to offer more than simply a new complexion in the Oval Office," writes Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, about the 44th president of the United States. Inspiring in a crowded stadium yet difficult behind the scenes, Obama was a master politician who loathed politics. To many, he was an enigma, often seen through the lens of the observer--a liberal zealot to the right, an overeager compromiser to the left. "I am a Rorschach test," he once noted. But he was the dominant figure of his age. After eight eventful years, he would never be the same--and neither would be his country.

Featuring expanded text, this fully updated chronicle of Obama: The Call of History is an in-depth account of Barack Obama's years in office, as well as an examination of his legacy as it stands today.

Peter Baker is the Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times responsible for covering President Trump and his administration. He has previously covered three other presidents for the Times and Washington Post: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, which was named one of the five Best Non-Fiction Books of 2013 by The New York Times Book Review. With his wife, Susan B. Glasser of the New Yorker, he is working on a biography of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III for Doubleday. He has won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Coverage of the Presidency twice, the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award for White House Reporting twice and the Merriman Smith Award. He is also a political analyst for MSNBC. He lives in Washington D.C. with Susan B. Glasser, and their son, Theo.