Here Come the Obama Victory Books!

The first wave of what will undoubtedly be a flood of books exploring what propelled Barack Obama to his historic victory have now come rushing from the printing presses. Taken together, they seem to mark the likely boundaries of the territory those that follow them will traverse.

In How Barack Obama Won: A State by State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election, (Vintage Books), Chuck Todd, now the chief White House Correspondent for NBC News, and Sheldon Gawiser, NBC News Elections Director, have compiled an invaluable compendium of data detailing how the vote went and why in every state. They’ve also provided an excellent overview of both Obama’s and John McCain’s march to their respective party’s nominations and the unfolding of the general campaign. This is a “must-have” book for anyone who wants to have the survey data and voting breakdowns at their fingertips.

The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (Doubleday), by journalist Gwen Ifill, who serves as moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week,” and senior correspondent of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, surveys the American political landscape with a journalist’s keen eye, shedding new light on the impact of Obama’s stunning presidential campaign and introducing the emerging young African-American politicians forging a bold new path to political power. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker; Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick; and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, as well as up-and-coming figures from across the nation.

***

What Obama Means: For Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future,(William Morrow) by author of the acclaimed book, The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, And Why, and editor-in-chief of “The Crisis,” the magazine of the NAACP, provides the context to understand what the Obama presidency means to Americans of all backgrounds. Asim includes the contemporary and the historical, asserting that performers such as Michael Jackson and athletes such as Michael Jordan did as much to lay the groundwork for Obama as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois and Martin Luther King, Jr. Asim examines the impact of Sidney Poitier’s performance in the groundbreaking 1967 movie, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” while placing Obama within the history of the black rhetorical tradition, alongside James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan.

***

How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press) by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author, political analyst and National Political Writer for New America Media and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and BlackAmericaWebCom, examines the impact of race and gender, campaign strategy, the key political players, changes in the Democractic and Republican parties, the power of the black, Hispanic, youth, women and blue-collar white workers’ votes, and how Obama’s victory might and might not change politics in America. Hutchinson also explores what the first African-American to win the White House means not only to America, but to the world.