Book Review: Becoming, by Michelle Obama (2018)

Cover of Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018)

Michelle and Barack Obama, definitely the coolest First Couple ever.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, is surely the most personal book ever written by a First Lady. On every page Obama’s voice rings out with authenticity, and she writes with appealing candor about her life story. 

Becoming is split into three parts, the first covering her life before she met Barack Obama, the second covering their lives before he became President, and the third covering their eight years in the White House. All three sections are fascinating. Obama paints a vivid picture of her childhood and upbringing on the South Side of Chicago. Her parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson, gave her stability and a strong moral compass. They worked hard to provide her with as many opportunities as they could. And Michelle took full advantage of those opportunities, as she excelled at school and attended Princeton University and then Harvard Law School. 

Obama then chronicles her relationship with a hotshot young lawyer who was a summer associate at the firm she was working at. Michelle was assigned to mentor this guy with the unlikely name of Barack Hussein Obama, who showed up late to his very first day at the firm. It was fascinating for me to read about the Obamas’ courtship, and to imagine them as two young lawyers, from very different backgrounds and upbringings, but both striving to make a difference in the world. These chapters made both Barack and Michelle feel more human and relatable to me.

While reading Becoming I was struck again at how rapid Barack Obama’s political rise was. He went from winning his first election to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 to winning the presidency twelve years later. Reading Becoming gives you a sense for how challenging every new step was for Michelle, as she adjusted to having Barack gone so much of the time. 

Barack Obama’s political rise always leaves me with a little feeling of “what might have been.” Not for his own political career, but for mine. In the spring of 2003 I was a senior at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. I was a Political Science major, and the President of the Knox College Democrats. I had volunteered and interned for several local political campaigns and I knew the chair of the county Democratic Party. I would periodically get emails about this guy who was running for the U.S. Senate. He had a really odd name. I don’t think he ever came to Galesburg, but he would campaign in the Quad Cities and Peoria, both about 45 minutes away from Galesburg. I never went to any of his campaign events. Of course, that guy running for the U.S. Senate was Barack Obama. In an alternate universe, where I wasn’t as fed up with politics, I would have met him at one of these events, stayed in Illinois after graduation to work for him, and then become his Chief of Staff or something when he became President. Then I would have written my memoir and would now be a talking head on CNN. 

It didn’t happen that way. I didn’t attend any of Barack Obama’s campaign events, so I never met this up and coming politician. I moved back to Minneapolis after I graduated in June of 2003, and my public introduction to Barack Obama was the same one that many Americans had: his stirring keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I was on a road trip with my Dad, and I remember watching that speech with him and thinking, “Wow, this guy could be President someday.” At some point after Obama’s speech, I remembered that he was the guy with the odd name who had been running for the U.S. Senate in 2003. But I digress. 

Becoming gets a little rushed during the Obama’s eight years in the White House, but that’s understandable, since Michelle could have written an entire book that only focused on those eight years. One thing that comes through strongly in Becoming is Barack and Michelle’s devotion to making sure their daughters Malia and Sasha had as normal a childhood as possible while living inside the fishbowl of the White House. 

Becoming is a fascinating look at Michelle Obama’s life, and the memories it brings of the Obama administration serve as a welcome antidote to the current administration.

Book Review: Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow (2010)

Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow, 2010. The painting on the front cover is by Rembrandt Peale.

Bust of George Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon, 1785. This sculpture is thought to be one of the best likenesses of Washington.

Author Ron Chernow.

Ron Chernow’s massive 2010 cradle-to-grave biography of George Washington, called simply Washington: A Life, is a superb achievement. It’s valid to ask if we really need another biography of George Washington, one of the most chronicled of all our Founding Fathers, but Chernow’s book is invaluable. The scope of Washington: A Life is immense, but the book succeeds because of Chernow’s excellent writing and his razor-sharp insights into Washington’s personality. 

Chernow digs deeply into Washington’s life to get the reader as close as possible to the actual person, not the dignified marble statue Washington is sometimes presented as. Chernow relies heavily on Washington’s own diary entries and letters, and this allows him to examine Washington’s personality. Washington was a complex man, and Chernow emphasizes the contradictions inherent in Washington’s life, as this fighter for liberty was also the owner of many slaves. Some of Chernow’s best writing throughout the book is about Washington and his ambivalent relationship with slavery. Washington was clearly uncomfortable with the institution, yet he never publicly called for emancipation. However, he was the only Founding Father who freed his slaves after his death. (But Washington couldn’t free all of the slaves at Mount Vernon because many of them had belonged to Martha before their marriage.)

George Washington was a man who sought to always be the master of his emotions, but he had a fiery temper that sometimes got the best of him, as when he cursed out the incompetent General Charles Lee after the battle of Monmouth. (p.342) Washington’s deep passion is revealed in some of his letters, despite his best efforts to subdue it. It’s clear that before his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis Washington was infatuated with Sally Fairfax, the wife of his neighbor and good friend George William Fairfax. In letters to Sally, Washington shows a more tender side and historians have long debated the exact nature of their relationship. In 1798, just a year before his death, Washington wrote to Sally Fairfax that none of his many amazing experiences in life “have been able to eradicate from my mind the recollection of those happy moments-the happiest of my life-which I have enjoyed in your company.” (p.778) Regardless of whether or not Sally Fairfax and Washington had a physical relationship, it’s clear that she was a deeply important person in his life. 

Another of Washington’s contradictions is that even though he was very humble, he clearly had one eye on his historical reputation. While the Revolutionary War was still going on, Washington had several aides transcribe and copy all of his wartime letters. The project took two years to complete, and the letters filled 28 volumes. Washington wrote: “I am fully convinced that neither the present age or posterity will consider the time and labor which have been employed in accomplishing it unprofitably spent.” (p.445) Washington was certainly correct about that. 

Washington’s powerful physicality added to the heroic mystique surrounding him. My favorite anecdote from the book was told by the artist Charles Willson Peale. Peale painted the 40-year-old Washington in 1772, and when he was visiting Mount Vernon he saw an example of Washington’s prodigious strength. Peale and some other young men were “pitching the bar,” which was a game of strength in which competitors threw a log or pole as far as they could. Washington came upon the players and briefly joined the game. His toss of the bar landed much farther than anyone else’s had. Washington said as he left, “When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I’ll try again.” (p.123) 

Chernow fully captures Washington’s towering physical presence. Tall, and extremely muscular, Washington filled out his Continental Army uniform very well, and he always carried himself with dignity and grace. In a letter to his tailor, Washington recorded his own height as six feet, but his upright bearing usually made contemporary observers add two inches to his height. Washington displayed immense physical courage throughout his life, and he braved volleys of gunfire many times. Native American tribes who had fought against Washington in the French and Indian Wars even thought he might be protected by supernatural forces because of his incredible luck in battle.  (p.61) 

What amazes me the most about George Washington is how he consistently turned away from power when he could have simply grabbed more. It’s one of the reasons Washington is such a remarkable figure. As Chernow writes, “The hallmark of Washington’s career was that he didn’t seek power but let it come to him.” (p.186) When Washington resigned his commission in the Continental Army after the end of Revolutionary War; it signaled that the United States would not become a military dictatorship, even though it would have been easy for Washington to be swept directly into power following the end of the war. After witnessing Washington’s resignation, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Washington, “The moderation and virtue of a single character…probably prevented this revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.” (p.456) 

George Washington was a truly amazing man, and it’s easy to see how he became such a mythical figure in American history. This mythology began during Washington’s own life, but fortunately, Ron Chernow knows that Washington’s accomplishments need no protective mythology surrounding them. By bringing us closer to the flesh and blood George Washington, Chernow proves that despite his failings, Washington is still worthy of veneration.

Book Review: How to Fight Presidents by Daniel O'Brien (2014)

How to Fight Presidents, by Daniel O'Brien, 2014.

5th President James Monroe, (1758-1831) who would definitely kick your ass if he came back from the dead. Watch out.

Daniel O’Brien’s new book, How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran this Country, is a humorous look at the occupants of the Oval Office. O’Brien is the head writer for cracked.com, and also a history buff, so he’s well-equipped to present us with an instructional manual on how to physically fight U.S. presidents, should we travel through time and need to do so. O’Brien’s theory is that most men who have been president were a little crazy, and also quite badass, and the combination of those two things would make them difficult to defeat, should we engage them in fisticuffs.

Each deceased president gets his own chapter in How to Fight Presidents. The chapter opens with what made them such a badass, and at the end we get recommendations on what tactics might work against them in a fight. The chapter headings are hilarious. Two of my favorites are: “Thomas Jefferson just invented six different devices that can kill you,” and “Franklin Pierce is the Franklin Pierce of fighting, which is to say, he is a bad fighter.”

Obviously, there’s a lot of humor in this book. But what makes it more than just a silly book is O’Brien’s overarching, somewhat serious theme that you need to be a crazy to be president. These men were not normal guys. Yes, some of them were terrible presidents. But most of them did some amazing things in order to be elected president. Except for Millard Fillmore. He never did anything amazing. Fillmore aside, O’Brien does a good job of explaining why these men were remarkable. We all know that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt were awesome and amazing and guys you would never want to fight, but O’Brien tells us why you wouldn’t want to fight the other presidents too. For example, James Monroe, our fifth president, was wounded in the shoulder during the American Revolution-and just kept fighting. Monroe served as secretary of state and secretary of war under James Madison-at the same time. While he was president, Monroe grabbed his own sword when two visiting dignitaries tried to duel in the White House and fought both of them while solving their dispute. And he threatened his secretary of the treasury with a set of fireplace tongs. So, yeah, he was kind of a badass. 

O’Brien does an excellent job of covering the accomplishments of our less famous presidents. He’s generous to men like James A. Garfield and Herbert Hoover, even though they weren’t fantastic presidents. O’Brien writes of Hoover, “He worked every minute of every day without tiring and wasn’t sick for a single day of his presidency.” (p.195) Hoover tried his hardest to get the country out of the Great Depression. Ultimately, he failed, but it certainly wasn’t for a lack of effort. I really appreciated O’Brien’s attitude toward the presidents-it’s easy to write about the great ones, but he does a good job of writing about the not so great ones.

The illustrations by Winston Rowntree also deserve a mention, as they are quite hilarious in themselves. Each president gets a full-page portrait, and then another smaller illustration in the body of their chapter. Rowntree’s drawings complement O’Brien’s writing very well. 

Most of all, How to Fight Presidents is really funny. In the chapter about John Quincy Adams, O’Brien makes note of Adams’s habit of swimming naked in the Potomac River while he was president. Adams apparently just liked being naked as much as possible. “Also he kept an alligator as a pet, right in the White House. That too feels like something that might come up in battle. Like if you were walking down the street and saw a naked guy with an alligator on a leash, you probably wouldn’t want to fight him, because to hell with that. That guy is John Quincy Adams, and it’s too late, because you’re already fighting.” (p.38) That made me laugh a lot. If you’re a presidential history buff like me, you will love How to Fight Presidents, and you will actually learn a lot of fun tidbits about the presidents. I just hope I never have to fight John Quincy Adams.