A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win | 
| Author: Shelby Steele
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
Buy New: $9.10
You Save: $12.90 (59%)
New (41) Used (13) Collectible (2) from $8.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 17612
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1416559175
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931092
EAN: 9781416559177
Publication Date: December 4, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: New, Excellent Condition , Immediate Shipping, Email Notification, Professional Service, MILLIONS Served, SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In Shelby Steele's beautifully wrought and thoughtprovoking new book, A Bound Man, the award-winning and bestselling author of The Content of Our Character attests that Senator Barack Obama's groundbreaking quest for the highest office in the land is fast becoming a galvanizing occasion beyond mere presidential politics, one that is forcing a national dialogue on the current state of race relations in America. Says Steele, poverty and inequality usually are the focus of such dialogues, but Obama's bid for so high an office pushes the conversation to a more abstract level where race is a politics of guilt and innocence generated by our painful racial history -- a kind of morality play between (and within) the races in which innocence is power and guilt is impotence.Steele writes of how Obama is caught between the two classic postures that blacks have always used to make their way in the white American mainstream: bargaining and challenging. Bargainers strike a "bargain" with white America in which they say, I will not rub America's ugly history of racism in your face if you will not hold my race against me. Challengers do the opposite of bargainers. They charge whites with inherent racism and then demand that they prove themselves innocent by supporting black-friendly policies like affirmative action and diversity. Steele maintains that Senator Obama is too constrained by these elaborate politics to find his own true political voice. Obama has the temperament, intelligence, and background -- an interracial family, a sterling education -- to guide America beyond the exhausted racial politics that now prevail. And yet he is a Promethean figure, a bound man. Says Steele, Americans are constrained by a racial correctness so totalitarian that we are afraid even to privately ask ourselves what we think about racial matters. Like Obama, most of us find it easier to program ourselves for correctness rather than risk knowing and expressing what we truly feel. Obama emerges as a kind of Everyman in whom we can see our own struggle to accept and honor what we honestly feel about race. In A Bound Man, Steele makes clear the precise constellation of forces that bind Senator Obama, and proposes a way for him to break these bonds and find his own voice.The courage to trust in one's own careful judgment is the new racial progress, the "way out" from the forces that now bind us all.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 Why is Barack Obama hiting a wall at 42% of the vote August 24, 2008
In this book, Shelby Steele explains, with an excellent diagnosis of the Obama approach, why Obama has hit a wall in his ability to gain votes.
As Steele develops the strategies, he explains the fundamental ways that blacks deal with the issue of racism. Steele also types Obama as one who operates behind the "mask" that Steele labels as "bargainer." In this regard, Steele believes that Obama is running on the wide theme of "change," while trying to straddle the issues and strike a contingency position where he will "bargain" during the fall campaign.
Steel believes that the electorate will not be able to resolve Obama's contingency approach, and will be frustrated by the belief that they do not know where Obama stands at the instant they pull the lever in the privacy of the voting booth.
In my research, I have looked into the substance of the Obama economic position, and have reached the conclusion that his essentially Marxist and Communist leaning stances are so far to the left that they cannot be "bargained" with the electorate in time to close the deal in the election.
As the ticket now stands with Biden on board, it reinforce the Steele analysis as it applies to the domestic and economic agenda. Ostensibly, the bargaining gap has been closed on foreign affairs with Biden. However, it is hard to conceive how they will be able to negotiate on the economic agenda -- especially if McCain fills the breech with Romney.
I recommend this book to everyone who is following the election by keeping pace with the relevant books. I have been collecting the books on my reading list 'Obamanomics.' I think it offers a good place to start a study of the election by examining the Obama approach and the criticism of it.
Anyone who Agrees with this Book will ask: What can the Country Do for Me? July 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read "A bound Man" in about two hours. Partly because it is a provocative, small, and well- paced book. It was my first experience reading a work by Professor Steele. I had heard about his highly acclaimed "The Content of our Character: A New Vision of Race in America", and his well-received "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Area."
His name has been mentioned as one who speaks with the same conviction and voice as Richard Wright and James Baldwin. Therein lies the rub ... times have changed. He explains how blacks anticipate; whites commiserate ... and prognosticates Barack OBama's demise in his quest for the nomination. I have the advantage of writing my review, July 29, 2008.
Senator OBama has won his party's nomination, in spite of the author's incendiary and misguided predictions. Personally, I have never believed in the tooth fairy (well, maybe a few years ago), the reading of tea leaves or anyone who surmises how I or the rest of America, think ... especially when it includes my wife, teenaged son, and Labrador retriever. But that is just how I roll.
I encourage everyone to examine the book; not because I agree with the author's viewpoints, but to explore, firsthand, an eloquent spokesperson who articulates visions, programs, and ideology, that are (in my opinion) no longer relevant in twenty-first century America. Reginald V. Johnson, Success-Tapes.Com
 The World Has Moved On July 19, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Shelby Steele is among a long ago generation that prefers using old arguments to push back against new realities. He prefers to fight old wars rather than positively confront new challenges. The thesis of the book is so small as to be nothing more than a magazine article. To enjoy the book you must suspend belief that anything has changed since 1960 and believe that race is still at the forefront of our country. Shame on Mr. Steele.
 Fast "Food for Thought" June 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Shelby Steele's book is a fast read about the dilemma facing Barack Obama as a contender for our nation's number one position. Obama must deal with the extreme issues facing our nation and the world.....and still deal with the one constant that unfortunately creeps into this nation.....race and religion. Steele leaves you with much food for thought as we attempt to move on as a nation.
a man of hoax rather than hope June 16, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book and a recent interview of Hoover institution with the author plus all his connections with the wrong and shady characters proves that he is a man of hoax rather than hope.
|
|
|
|
