We Are the Change We Seek - The Speeches of Barack Obama

A collection of Barack Obama's greatest speeches, now including his farewell address, selected and introduced by columnist E.J. Dionne and MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid.

We Are the Change We Seek is a collection of Barack Obama's 27 greatest addresses: beginning with his 2002 speech opposing the Iraq War and closing with his emotional farewell address in Chicago in January 2017. As president, Obama's words had the power to move the country, and often the world, as few presidents before him. Whether acting as Commander in Chief or Consoler in Chief, Obama adopted a unique rhetorical style that could simultaneously speak to the national mood and change the course of public events. Obama's eloquence, both written and spoken, propelled him to national prominence and ultimately made it possible for the son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas to become the first black president of the United States.

These speeches span Obama's career--from his time in state government through to the end of his tenure as president--and the issues most important to our time: war, inequality, race relations, gun violence and human rights. The book opens with an essay placing Obama's oratorical contributions within the flow of American history by E.J. Dionne Jr., columnist and author of Why The Right Went Wrong, and Joy Reid, the host of AM Joy on MSNBC and author of Fracture.

Published on: 2017-01-31

Released on: 2017-01-31

Original language: English

Dimensions: 8.55" h x 27.94" w x 6.00" l,

Binding: Hardcover

368 pages

Review 

"In a new book, 'We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama,' we have been given the first partial, though still substantive, look at Obama’s words, and it is a political partisan's dream to see them so finely gathered here." - Washington Post

About the Author 

E.J. Dionne, Jr. is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, and a university professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University. He is the author of six books. The most recent are Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism - From Goldwater to Trump and Beyond, published by Simon & Schuster in 2016, and Our Divided Political Heart, published by Bloomsbury in 2012.

Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid is a political analyst and the host of "AM Joy" which airs weekend mornings on MSNBC. She is the author of Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons and the Racial Divide, published by William Morrow in September 2015, and released in paperback in September 2016.