Book Review of the Audacity of Hope.docx

1、Book Review of the Audacity of HopeBook Review of the Audacity of HopeEnglish reading class 2徐芙蓉，石格格，张娟Book detailsThe book The Audacity of Hope is the second book written by the 44th and current President of the United States-Barack Hussein Obama , who is first African American to hold the office.

2、This book is a biography of strong political convictions .It is published by the Three Rivers Press in October,2006.General introduction The book review includes seven parts:First,the book details of the book.Second,the general introduction of the book review.Third,the background of the book.This pa

3、rt contains three aspects: President Obamas political career,the origin of the title The Audacity of Hope and the social conditions.Fourth,the summary of the book.It consists of four parts:two parties,values,kinds of problems and Mr. Obamas own experiences through the whole book.Fifth,the evaluation

4、 of the book. This part is subdivided into two parts, theme exploration and language use.Sixth,the reccomendation.Seventh,conclusion.Background1. About President Obamas political careerObama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Obama is a graduate ofColumbia UniversityandHarvard Law Scho

5、ol, where he was the president of theHarvard Law Review. He was acommunityorganizerin Chicago before earning hislaw degree. He worked as acivil rightsattorney in Chicago and taughtconstitutional lawat theUniversity of Chicago Law Schoolfrom 1992 to 2004. He served three termsrepresenting the 13th Di

6、strict in theIllinois Senatefrom 1997 to 2004.Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, includi

7、ng his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 20042. About the origin of the title The Audacity of HopeThe title The Audacity

8、of Hope comes from a article calledhope.On the article, a young woman is sitting on the eartha symbol of the world with her body leaning forward, her head bowing,and her eyes covered with bandages.she is playing the ancient Greece lyre that has only one string and she is absorbed in the weak music.

9、The intention of the artists to show that the human will never lose hope until the end of the world.But the audiences feelings may be different, Obama think that although the body of the woman seems to be the victim of Hiroshima .Although the world is torn by war and disease, is devastated by hatred

10、 and greed, is ravaged by the suspicion, this woman is still the audacity of hope with her only one string lyre.she will play nice music and praise of God. So Mr. Obama referred to the phrase in his 2004 Democratic Convention keynote address.3. About the social conditions of the United StatesAmerica

11、 sufferred extremely serious economic crisis at that time .Besides, the racial and religious were growing more and more tense.SummaryThe audacity of hope is the book of thoughts on reclaiming the American dream. In this book, the author tells the story about his own failure and success, discriminati

12、on and fortune, family background and love, the story of growth and struggle, and his political progress. The purpose of this whole book is: how to change the peoples livelihood and politics of the United States. According to this theme, the book divides into four parts: two parties, values, all kin

13、ds of problems and his personal experiences through the book. First part is the two parties: the democrats and the republicans. The Democratic Party is the left party, and its policy preferred to middle class. They pay attention to the welfare and fair, and want to reform. The Republicans Party is t

14、he right party, which represent the interests of the big capitalists. In this book, he recalled his political experiences at first and then elaborates the situation of the two parties. Those two parties have a big conflict, which Obama thinks its very stupid. He criticized the politician strongly. I

15、n view of the current situation of this two parties, Obama puts forward an idea to solve the problem, and hopes they can work together to make America thriving and prosperous.Second are values. Through some situation, Obama started to think about the value of the American people. In the depths of Am

16、erican spirit, there are some common ideals and faiths. As the declaration of independence said: “We are born free, all of us; we have a lot of powers. If there is no reasonable reason, anyone any country can not rob; through our own efforts, we can also live the life we want.” In American mind, the

17、re are some common values, different colors, different beliefs, different social strata and different political parties, Americans can live together and work together .These common ideals, common values and a common hope are always exist in the hearts of the majority of the American people ,to make

18、American advance.Third are the kinds of problems. Obama give his governing ideas in this book. He believes that the US is the biggest country in the world. But there are still many problems .The different religions ideas, the economic crises, racial discrimination, and so on. In his ruling ideas, hi

19、s has a strong conception of history. His saw the United States progress, and proved it by his own experiences. He also believes that the united states of democracy, freedom equality of opportunity in conception is the national strong guarantee.The last part is his own experiences through the whole

20、book. We all know he is a black man, and so young. How could he become a president of America? Of course, by his fairy, never give up. Through his efforts, he reflects the American dream, that is: everyone is equal, and everyone has the right of freedom, everybody can use his talent to access to the

21、 success. Miracle is in our hands, and everything is possible. This is American dream. If everyone can hold this dream and try his best to do so, America society will be more perfect.All in all, the topic of this book is to tell us how to transcend differences, try you best and then solved all the p

22、roblems to create a new America.EvaluationThe audacity of hope is a well-written book that Obama uses skilled rhetorical skills and his life experiences to demonstrate his critical thinking on different topics, from which we can learn a lot about his life experience and American history, values, fai

23、th, politics, family and so on. We evaluate this book from the following two aspects: the theme exploration and the language appreciation. 1、Theme exploration(1)After reading this book, what impresses me most is the love that reflected in the book. His love for his family members: mother, grandparen

24、ts, wife, two lovely daughters and fellow Americans. As a child, he is grateful for his mother and grandparents upbringing, and he learns a lot from them. As a husband, he thanks his wife for her sacrifice and understanding and supporting for him. As a father, he loves his two lovely daughters like

25、any other fathers in the world. As a statesman, his love for the common people motivates him to go into politics to express their real thoughts and concerns and do something really useful and meaningful on their behalf.（2）The second one is the hopes, dreams, values that have been conveyed in this bo

26、ok. It was not only the struggles of these men and women that had moved me but also their determination, their self-reliance, a relentless optimism in the face of hardship. The audacity of hope. That was the best of the American spirithaving the audacity to believe despite all the evidence to the co

27、ntrary that they could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict; the gall to believe that despite personal setbacks, the loss of a job or an illness in the family or a childhood mired in poverty, they had some controland therefore responsibilityover their own fate. 2、Language useAs

28、we known, Obama is a great and talented public speaker, so his language can be extremely powerful, vivid, inspiring and eloquent. Though this book is considered as an autobiography of obama, however, it is quite different from others. He knows how to write well. Therefore, in this book there are man

29、y well-written sentences and paragraphs.To produce such effect, he uses many figures of speech, such as simile, parallelism and other writing skills, like description, large number of examples to impress the readers or to create humorous effect. Here are some good examples:(1)Love (description)Child

30、ren Later that night, back home in Chicago, I sat at the dinner table, watching Malia and Sasha as they laughed and bickered and resisted their string beans before their mother chased them up the stairs and to their baths. Alone in the kitchen washing the dishes, I imagined my two girls growing up,

31、and I felt the ache that every parent must feel at one time or another, that desire to snatch up each moment of your childs presence and never let goto preserve every gesture, to lock in for all eternity the sight of their curls or the feel of their fingers clasped around yours. I know that tucking

32、in my daughters that night, I grasped a little bit of heaven. In this vivid description about his daughters, he applied many verbs to portray their movements, they are so lovely .From his inner voice, we can feel his deep love.(2)Hopes & Dreams & Values (parallelism)(a) What struck me was just how modest peoples hopes were, and how much of what they believed seemed to hold constant across race, region, religion, and class. Most of them thought that anybody willing to work should be able to find a job that paid a living wage. They figured that people shouldnt have