A Long Time Coming: The Inspiring, Combative 2008 Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama

by Staff of Newsweek, Evan Thomas (Editor)

Overview

Since 1984, Newsweek has been renowned for its vivid, in-depth special election coverage of the ordeal of running for the presidency. A year before the election, Newsweek assigns reporters to get inside the campaigns of the Republican and Democratic candidates. Newsweek promises not to publish any information until after the votes are cast, and in exchange, the reporters receive remarkable access. They travel with the candidates, are there at crucial turning points and confidential meetings, and uncover stories not covered in day-to-day reporting.

In this book, a compelling narrative by Evan Thomas, Newsweek shares the inside stories from one of the most exciting elections in recent history, illuminating the personalities and events that influenced the outcome, and taking stock of the key players and key issues for the new administration. This will be an absorbing read for anyone interested in American politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786747955
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	06/17/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	654,135
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Evan Thomas is the author of several bestselling works of history and biography, including The War Lovers and Sea of Thunder. He was a writer and editor at Time and Newsweek for more than thirty years, and he is frequently a commentator on television and radio. He teaches at Princeton University and lives in Washington, D.C.

Editorial Reviews

A perceptive, smoothly written and generally fair-minded account of both presidential campaigns…Newsweek makes a persuasive case both for the exceptional quality of the Obama campaign and for the ways in which it displayed skills that will be of value in the White House.
—The New York Times

Alan Brinkley

Alan Brinkley, New York Times Book Review, January 18, 2009
“For sheer speed and competence, the most impressive of these recent books is Evan Thomas's "Long Time Coming," compiled from the reporting of the political writers of Newsweek (a magazine for which I occasionally write). A perceptive, smoothly written, and generally fair minded account of both presidential campaigns, it is, nevertheless, a contribution to the creation of the superhero image that has surrounded Obama over the last six months."

Shelf Awareness, January 7, 2009
“Briskly told, entertaining.”
 

Donna Seaman, starred Booklist review
“An adroitly distilled chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign and the election of Barack Obama….This easily devoured, crisply anecdotal account, spiked with revealing, side-of the-mouth comments, charts the most cautious and reckless of political maneuverings and provides in-action portraits of the major players, both obvious and behind-the-scenes….Thomas writes that Obama, an avid reader and gifted writer, sees himself as ‘a figure out of literature,’ and, indeed, real-life stories don’t get more compelling than this.”
 

Chris Matthews, MSNBC “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” January 20, 2009
“…candy.

From the Publisher