Joe Biden
By Evan Osnos
- Release Date: 2020-10-06
- Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Description
*A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR*
A concise, brilliant, and trenchant examination of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s successful lifelong quest for the presidency by National Book Award winner Evan Osnos.
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest—fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses and disappointments that he has suffered.
Yet even as Biden’s life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors, and reversals of fortune. As he says, “Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.” His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship—an essential quality as he leads America toward recovery and renewal.
Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos, who won the National Book Award in 2014, draws on nearly a decade of reporting for The New Yorker to capture the characters and meaning of 2020’s extraordinary presidential election. It is based on lengthy interviews with Biden and on revealing conversations with more than a hundred others, including President Barack Obama, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and a range of activists, advisers, opponents, and Biden family members.
This portrayal illuminates Biden’s long and eventful career in the Senate, his eight years as Obama’s vice president, his sojourn in the political wilderness after being passed over for Hillary Clinton in 2016, his decision to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, and his choice of Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Osnos ponders the difficulties Biden faces as his presidency begins and weighs how a changing country, a deep well of experiences, and a rigorous approach to the issues, have altered his positions. In this nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy—a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history.
Reviews
ILLEGITIMATE PRESIDENT
1By Prophet AmosAn illegitimate president, he is unfit physically and mentally to handle the office. The American people were cheated.Republican
1By Boardz20I am a republican. I believe our country will be destroyed by Biden. This is the smallest rating that was available.Joe Biden
5By Victoria BracamonteI loved the book. He is just what the country needs, honesty, intergraty and good ole family values.Biden: just in time, what this country needs!
5By KooljeauJoe Biden is a man who loves and cares about his country. He will do great things as our 46th president!Trump 2020
1By Sam VaderI’m going not to do anything about him👎
1By Timothy R PThis guy and his son are horrible human beings. This must be a story about political corruption and the lies he’s gotten away with.Criminal
1By DallompThis man is a career criminal. Why would anyone buy this horrible book?