Writer’s Note: In upcoming posts, I will be reading and reflecting on David J. Garrow’s massive new Obama biography, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, published today by William Morrow. I need to offer two caveats at the outset: as of this writing I have not yet read the book, and I know David Garrow personally.
Although we haven’t spoken in years, Garrow and I became friends in the later 1990s when I was a graduate student and he was a professor at Emory University. I was also at the time a Democratic state lobbyist, nonprofit director, and community organizer. We socialized: he is a gracious host. I took no classes from him, but I read his books and his scholarly articles, and his door was always open to me.
David Garrow taught me a great deal about what it takes to be a historian and academician, and he was generous with his time. While I have changed my views on much of the politics we once shared, I have not changed my opinion of the value of his work.
