City of Belmont - Ruth Faulkner Public Library

The world as it is, inside the Obama White House, Ben Rhodes

eng

contains biographical information

no index present

non fiction

The world as it is

Ben Rhodes

inside the Obama White House

For nearly ten years, Ben Rhodes saw almost everything that happened at the center of the Obama administration, first as a speechwriter, then as deputy national security advisor, and finally as a multipurpose aide and close collaborator. He started every morning in the Oval Office with the President's Daily Brief, traveled the world with Obama, and was at the center of some of the most consequential and controversial moments of the presidency. Now he tells the full story of his partnership, and, ultimately, friendship, with a man who also happened to be an historic president of the United States. Rhodes was not your typical presidential confidant, and this is not your typical White House memoir. Rendered in vivid, novelistic detail by someone who was a writer before he was a staffer, this is a rare look inside the most poignant, tense, and consequential moments of the Obama presidency, waiting out the bin Laden raid in the Situation Room, responding to the Arab Spring, reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran, leading secret negotiations with the Cuban government to normalize relations, and confronting the resurgence of nationalism and nativism that culminated in the election of Donald Trump. In The World as It Is, Rhodes shows what it was like to be there, from the early days of the Obama campaign to the final hours of the presidency. It is a story populated by such characters as Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates, and, above all, Barack Obama, who comes to life on the page in moments of great urgency and disarming intimacy. This is the most vivid portrayal yet of Obama's worldview and presidency, a chronicle of a political education by a writer of enormous talent, and an essential record of the forces that shaped the last decade

In the beginning -- Talk to Iran, get Bin Laden -- A community of fate -- The President is on board the aircraft -- Cairo -- Obama's war -- War and a peace prize -- The end of the beginning -- Egypt: The transition must begin now -- Libya -- Bin Laden: Life inside a secret -- Gathering clouds -- Reaction and action -- Life, death, and Benghazi -- A second term -- Young men wage war, old men make peace -- Clenched fists -- Red line -- Becoming a right-wing villain -- Race, Mandela, and Castro -- Russians and intervention -- Divine intervention -- Permanent war -- New beginnings -- Tapping the brakes -- The antiwar room -- Bombs and children -- Havana -- The stories people tell about you -- The stories we tell -- Information wars -- The end

adult