cover image Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics

Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics

Paul Street. Paradigm Publishers, $27.95 (280pp) ISBN 978-1-59451-631-3

Street, Paul. Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics. Paradigm. Oct. 2008. c.272p. index. POL SCI~ Marred by heavily biased analysis, this polemic could be useful to those collections that already have more objective accounts; however, libraries on limited budgets searching for a balanced treatment of Obama are advised to skip it. Background: Street (Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis) trains a critical lens on the experience, associations, positions, and statements of Barack Obama. The author is an unapologetic critic of ""the Establishment""--in the tradition of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky--and he posits that Obama's positions aren't liberal enough to justify the candidate's assertions that he can bring substantive change and that Obama is actually content to compromise to meet the needs of the Establishment rather than those of ordinary Americans. Drawing on a raft of public documents and his own knowledge of Chicago politics, Street places Obama as just another candidate beholden to the moneyed interests in our political system. --Thomas J. Baldino, Ph.D., Wilkes Univ., PA.