Who Is Barack Obama?

1. Honolulu, Jakarta and Chicago: the making of a politician

Barack Hussein Obama II was born on 4 August 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Ann Dunham, an American anthropologist from Kansas, and Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan economist. From 1967 to 1971 he lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, with his mother and stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, then returned to Hawaii, where he was raised by his maternal grandparents and graduated from Punahou School in 1979. The background was unusual for an American president: a childhood split between Hawaii, Indonesia and the mainland, a father who left when he was young, and a family that was neither rich nor politically connected.

He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1981, then transferred to Columbia University in New York, earning a BA in political science in 1983. After working as a community organiser in Chicago from 1985 to 1988, he entered Harvard Law School in 1988, became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990, and graduated magna cum laude with a JD in 1991. The community organising years matter to his story because they shaped his political style: he learned to listen to residents of poor neighbourhoods, to build coalitions, and to present himself as a bridge between different groups, a habit that would define his campaigns.

After Harvard he practised as a civil-rights lawyer and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, then served in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. His keynote address at the Democratic National Convention on 27 July 2004 brought him national attention, and he was elected to the US Senate later that year, serving from 2005 to 2008. The 2004 speech, in which he argued that there was not a liberal America and a conservative America but a United States of America, became the template for his politics: an appeal to unity that his supporters found inspiring and his critics later described as a promise he could not keep.

2. The 2008 election and the politics of hope

Obama announced his candidacy for president in February 2007, and his campaign was built on the word hope: hope that the country could move past the Iraq War, hope that health care could be fixed, hope that a different kind of politics was possible. He defeated Hillary Clinton in a long Democratic primary, then won the general election on 4 November 2008 against the Republican nominee, John McCain, and was inaugurated on 20 January 2009. He was the first African American president, and his election was widely described at the time as a historic moment for a country that had practised slavery and segregation within living memory.

The election took place in the middle of the financial crisis. Banks were failing, unemployment was rising, and the economy was shrinking. Obama inherited a crisis that had begun under his predecessor, George W. Bush, and his first task was to stop it getting worse. His administration passed a large stimulus package, rescued the car industry, and introduced new financial regulations. Supporters of the response argue that it prevented a second Great Depression and that the economy grew steadily for the rest of his presidency. Critics argue that the recovery was slow, that wages stayed flat for many workers, and that the rescue of banks rewarded the institutions that had caused the crisis.

The symbolism of the election is not in dispute: a black man had been elected president of the United States, and millions of people around the world saw it as proof that the country could change. What is disputed is what followed. Some analysts argue that the election raised expectations that no president could meet, and that the disappointment helped fuel the polarisation of the years that followed. Others argue that the opposition Obama faced was itself shaped by race, and that his presidency was obstructed in ways that had little to do with policy. Both arguments are made in serious histories of the period, and the record supports elements of each.

3. The Affordable Care Act and the domestic record

Obama's central domestic achievement was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law on 23 March 2010. The law extended health insurance to millions of Americans, barred insurers from refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions, and allowed young adults to stay on their parents' plans until the age of 26. It was passed without a single Republican vote, after a long and bitter debate, and it was challenged in the Supreme Court, which upheld most of it in 2012. Supporters describe it as the most important expansion of health care since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. Critics describe it as an overreach that raised premiums for some, imposed mandates on individuals and businesses, and expanded the federal government's role in health care.

The debate over the law has never been settled, and it is worth setting out the arguments as they are made by each side. Supporters point to the fall in the number of uninsured Americans, to the protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and to the fact that later attempts to repeal the law failed, including a Republican effort in 2017. Critics point to rising premiums and deductibles for some families, to insurers leaving some markets, and to the law's unpopularity in its early years. The evidence is mixed enough that both sides can find support for their case, which is why the law remains a live political argument more than fifteen years after it was passed.

Beyond health care, Obama's domestic record included the end of the military policy known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the legalisation of same-sex marriage nationwide by the Supreme Court in 2015, which his administration supported, and new regulations on Wall Street and the environment. His administration also oversaw a large increase in deportations of people living in the country without legal status, a fact that drew criticism from immigrant advocates even as his supporters on immigration argued that he was enforcing the law while seeking reform. The tension between his image as a progressive and his record on enforcement is one of the less discussed parts of his presidency, and it complicates any simple account of his politics.

4. Drones, Libya and the contested foreign policy

Obama's foreign policy is the most contested part of his record, and three issues dominate the debate: drone strikes, Libya, and the use of American military power generally. His administration greatly expanded the use of armed drones against suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Supporters of the policy argue that it was a precise and effective way to kill senior al-Qaeda and Taliban figures without putting American soldiers at risk, and that it degraded terrorist organisations. Critics, including human-rights organisations, argue that the strikes killed civilians, that the criteria for targeting were secret, and that the policy set a dangerous precedent for the use of lethal force outside declared war zones. The civilian death toll is disputed, with different counts giving very different figures, and the administration's own estimates were lower than those of independent monitors.

In 2011 the United States joined a NATO intervention in Libya that led to the overthrow and killing of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Supporters of the intervention argue that it prevented a massacre of civilians in Benghazi and that it was authorised by the United Nations. Critics argue that the intervention went beyond its mandate, that it left Libya in chaos and civil war, and that Obama himself later described the failure to plan for the aftermath as the worst mistake of his presidency. The admission is notable: presidents rarely describe their own decisions that way, and it has become a central piece of evidence for both sides, with supporters citing it as honesty and critics citing it as an admission of failure.

The most widely praised foreign-policy moment of his presidency was the operation that killed Osama bin Laden on 2 May 2011, when US Navy SEALs raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The operation was authorised by Obama after months of intelligence work, and it removed the leader of al-Qaeda nearly ten years after the attacks of 11 September 2001. His administration also reached the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 and normalised relations with Cuba after more than fifty years of hostility. His critics argue that these achievements were outweighed by the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria during his second term, and by the failure to enforce his own warning about chemical weapons in Syria. As with the domestic record, the foreign-policy record is one on which reasonable people, looking at the same facts, reach different conclusions.

5. The Nobel Prize and the question of expectations

Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, nine months into his presidency, for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The award was announced in October 2009, and it drew both praise and criticism, including from Obama himself, who said in his acceptance speech that he did not feel he deserved to be in the company of past laureates. Supporters of the award argued that it recognised a change in tone in American foreign policy, a willingness to engage with other countries and to use diplomacy rather than force. Critics argued that it was premature, that it rewarded intentions rather than achievements, and that it was awkward given that the United States was fighting two wars at the time.

The Nobel Prize has become a symbol of the wider argument about Obama: the gap between the hopes he inspired and the results he delivered. His supporters say the prize was a recognition of his approach to the world, and that his record on diplomacy, climate and nuclear agreements justifies it in retrospect. His critics say the prize illustrates the problem with his presidency as a whole, that he was celebrated for his words rather than his deeds. The fairest assessment is that the prize was awarded for a direction rather than a result, and that history has judged both the direction and the results in mixed terms. It is also worth noting that Obama is not the only president to have received the prize in controversial circumstances, and that the award says as much about the Nobel Committee as it does about its recipient.

The question of expectations runs through his whole career. He entered office promising to change the tone of American politics, to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, to pass immigration reform, and to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He ended the war in Iraq in 2011, though American troops later returned to fight the Islamic State, and he drew down forces in Afghanistan without ending the war. Guantanamo remained open, and immigration reform did not pass. His supporters argue that he was blocked by Congress and by events beyond his control; his critics argue that he over-promised and under-delivered. Both claims contain truth, and the balance between them is the central judgement historians will have to make.

6. Race, polarisation and the second term

Obama was re-elected on 6 November 2012, defeating the Republican nominee Mitt Romney, and his second term included the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 and the normalisation of relations with Cuba. It also included the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the mass shootings that renewed the debate over gun control, and a series of confrontations with a Republican Congress that blocked much of his legislative agenda. The second term was, in many ways, the story of a president governing by executive action because the legislative route was closed, and of the limits that placed on what he could achieve.

The growth of political polarisation during his presidency is one of the most debated parts of his legacy. Some analysts argue that Obama's own style contributed to it, that his confidence and his reliance on executive orders alienated opponents, and that his presidency coincided with the rise of a more confrontational politics on both sides. Others argue that the polarisation was driven by forces outside his control: the financial crisis, the changing media landscape, and a Republican opposition that decided early on to block his agenda. The evidence for the second view includes the statement by the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell that his top priority was to make Obama a one-term president, and the refusal of the Senate to consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee in 2016. The evidence for the first view includes Obama's own admission that he had underestimated the difficulty of changing Washington.

Race is the hardest part of this debate to discuss honestly, and it cannot be avoided. Obama was the first black president, and his presidency coincided with a rise in racial tension in American politics, including the growth of the birther conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed he was not born in the United States. Some historians argue that his race shaped the opposition he faced in ways that are uncomfortable to acknowledge. Others argue that the opposition was driven by policy and party, and that attributing it to race oversimplifies a complex politics. What can be said with confidence is that his election did not end racism in America, as some hoped it would, and that the years after his presidency saw race return to the centre of American political debate.

7. After the White House: foundation, memoir and legacy

Obama left office on 20 January 2017 and has since worked through the Obama Foundation and as an author. His memoir A Promised Land, published in 2020, is the first volume of his presidential memoirs, and it covers his life up to the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. The Obama Foundation is building the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, on the South Side of the city where he began his career as a community organiser. He has remained active in politics as a campaigner for Democratic candidates, but he has not sought office again, and his public role since 2017 has been that of a former president rather than a political leader.

His legacy is debated along partisan lines, and that is itself part of the story. Supporters credit the Affordable Care Act, the economic recovery, the restoration of American standing abroad, and the simple fact of his election, which they see as a milestone in American history. Critics point to the slow recovery, the growth of polarisation, the drone programme, the intervention in Libya, and the failure to deliver on immigration reform and the closure of Guantanamo. Historians note that he is the first president to have been succeeded by Donald Trump, and that the contrast between the two men has shaped how both are remembered. Abraham Lincoln, the president Obama most often cited, is remembered for holding the country together; Nelson Mandela, whom Obama admired and eulogised, is remembered for reconciliation after division. Obama's legacy will be judged, in the end, by whether his presidency is seen as a step towards that kind of reconciliation or as a moment when the divisions deepened.

For readers who want to go further, the most useful next step is to compare his two terms with the presidencies that came before and after: the administration of George W. Bush, which he inherited the financial crisis from, and the administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, which bracketed his own. The biography on this site gives the verified facts of his life, and the sources below are the best places to follow the arguments about his record as they continue to develop.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Barack Obama
• Wikipedia — Barack Obama
• The Obama White House (archived) — Barack Obama
• NobelPrize.org — The Nobel Peace Prize 2009

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• Who Was Alexander the Great? — Alexander the Great built one of history's largest empires before dying at 32. This explains his conquests, his cities and the debate over his legacy.
• Who Was Alfred Nobel? — Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, held 355 patents and founded the Nobel Prizes. This explains his explosives empire, his will and the prizes' legacy.
• Who Was Allama Iqbal? — Allama Iqbal was Pakistan's national poet, whose ideas shaped the case for Pakistan. This explains his poetry, his philosophy and his legacy.
• Who Was Benazir Bhutto? — Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country, serving as prime minister of Pakistan in 1988-90 and 1993-96.
• Who Was Bob Marley? — Bob Marley took reggae from Jamaica to the world and became a symbol of peace, resistance and unity. This explains his life, his music and his legacy.
• Who Was Bruce Lee? — Bruce Lee was the martial artist and actor who carried Hong Kong action cinema to the world and founded Jeet Kune Do, leaving a lasting influence.
• Who Was Charles Darwin? — Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species in 1859, became the foundation of modern biology.
• Who Was Charles Dickens? — Charles Dickens was the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, whose serialised novels mixed comedy, social criticism and unforgettable characters.
• Who Was Charlie Chaplin? — Charlie Chaplin created the Little Tramp, the most famous screen character of the silent era, and directed classics City Lights and The Great Dictator.
• Who Was Cleopatra? — Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, a multilingual stateswoman who kept her kingdom independent for 21 years before Rome annexed it.
• Who Was Diego Maradona? — Diego Maradona was an Argentine footballer who captained Argentina to the 1986 World Cup and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history.
• Who Was Don Bradman? — Don Bradman was an Australian cricketer who averaged 99.94 in Test cricket, a record so far ahead of any other batsman that it remains famous in sport.
• Who Was Elvis Presley? — Elvis Presley took gospel, country and rhythm and blues and turned them into rock and roll, becoming the most famous singer of his century.
• Who Was Emily Dickinson? — Emily Dickinson was an American poet who wrote nearly 1,800 poems in private in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was barely published in her lifetime.
• Who Was Faiz Ahmed Faiz? — Faiz Ahmed Faiz was Pakistan's most celebrated modern Urdu poet, whose verse joined romantic lyricism with resistance to injustice.
• Who Was Franz Beckenbauer? — Franz Beckenbauer was a German footballer known as Der Kaiser, who won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and as manager in 1990.
• Who Was Freddie Mercury? — Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, a four-octave voice and fearless showman who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are the Champions.
• Who Was Frida Kahlo? — Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for uncompromising, brilliantly coloured self-portraits exploring identity, the body and death.
• Who Was Galileo Galilei? — Galileo Galilei reshaped astronomy with his telescopic discoveries of 1610, defended a Sun-centred universe, and was tried by the Inquisition in 1633.
• Who Was Genghis Khan? — Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and built the largest contiguous land empire in history, a conqueror and lawgiver whose legacy is still argued over.
• Who Was George Washington? — George Washington won American independence, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and as first president defined the office — then walked away.
• Who Was Guglielmo Marconi? — Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor who built the first practical wireless telegraph and sent the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901.
• Who Was Henry Ford? — Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company, built the Model T and perfected the moving assembly line.
• Who Was Isaac Newton? — Isaac Newton wrote the laws of motion and universal gravitation, invented calculus and transformed optics, leaving a lasting legacy in science.
• Who Was James Watt? — James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but his separate condenser of 1765 made it efficient enough to power the Industrial Revolution.
• Who Was Jane Austen? — Jane Austen published six novels in her lifetime, anonymously, and died at 41. This explains her life, her novels, her irony and her growing reputation.
• Who Was Jesus Christ? — Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. This explains his life in the Gospels, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Johan Cruyff? — Johan Cruyff was the star of Total Football, won three Ballon d'Or awards, and as a manager built the Barcelona team that shaped modern football.
• Who Was Johannes Gutenberg? — Johannes Gutenberg built the first mechanised printing press in Europe and printed the Gutenberg Bible around 1455, changing how the world shared ideas.
• Who Was John Keats? — John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome at 25, having written his six great odes in a single year. This explains his short life, his poetry and his fame.
• Who Was Joseph Stalin? — Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953, industrialised the country and led it through the Second World War, ruling through terror.
• Who Was Julius Caesar? — Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, crossed the Rubicon and remade Rome's calendar and government, and was murdered by senators who feared he would be king.
• Who Was Kobe Bryant? — Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and became known for the Mamba Mentality, on and off the court.
• Who Was Leo Tolstoy? — Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, then abandoned literary fame for a radical moral philosophy that influenced Gandhi and the world.
• Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? — Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and filled notebooks with anatomy and engineering, becoming the symbol of the Renaissance.
• Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven? — Ludwig van Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and the Missa Solemnis, much of it while deaf. This explains his life and legacy.
• Who Was Mahatma Gandhi? — Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence through nonviolent resistance, and his ideas shaped civil-rights movements worldwide.
• Who Was Mao Zedong? — Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and led it until 1976, bringing unification and the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
• Who Was Margaret Thatcher? — Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to serve as British prime minister, leading the UK from 1979 to 1990 through reform, the Falklands War and division.
• Who Was Marie Curie? — Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, a pioneer of radioactivity research.
• Who Was Marilyn Monroe? — Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of the 1950s, the blonde bombshell of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, who fought the studio system.
• Who Was Mark Twain? — Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and became America's most famous humorist.
• Who Was Maya Angelou? — Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made her widely read.
• Who Was Michael Jackson? — Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made Thriller, the best-selling album in history, and changed music video, dance and pop stardom.
• Who Was Mirza Ghalib? — Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is the pre-eminent Urdu and Persian poet of the last Mughal era, whose ghazals on love, loss and doubt are still recited.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali Jinnah? — Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the barrister and statesman who led the All-India Muslim League and became Pakistan's first Governor-General in 1947.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali? — Muhammad Ali was the three-time heavyweight champion who called himself The Greatest, and the most famous athlete of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte? — Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Corsica to Emperor of the French, redrew the map of Europe, and left a legal code that still shapes law across the world.
• Who Was Nelson Mandela? — Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid, then became South Africa's first democratically elected president and a Nobel Peace laureate.
• Who Was Nikola Tesla? — Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current power system, the induction motor and the Tesla coil, making long-distance electric power practical.
• Who Was Osama bin Laden? — Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and organised the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.
• Who Was Pablo Neruda? — Pablo Neruda was Chile's great poet, a Nobel laureate, a communist senator and a diplomat. This explains his poetry, his politics and his death.
• Who Was Pablo Picasso? — Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism, painted Guernica, and spent 75 years breaking the rules of art — the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Pelé? — Pele is the only footballer to win three World Cups, the youngest winner, and the game's first global icon. This is his life, his goals and his legacy.
• Who Was Pope Francis? The People's Pope — Pope Francis, the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit pope, led the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 with an emphasis on mercy and the poor.
• Who Was Prophet Muhammad? — The Prophet Muhammad is the founder of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. This explains his life, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Queen Elizabeth II? — Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, from 1952 to 2022 — the longest reign in British history. This explains her life, her reign and her legacy.
• Who Was Rabindranath Tagore? — Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the author of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
• Who Was Rosa Parks? — Rosa Parks was not a tired seamstress who acted on impulse. She was a trained activist and NAACP secretary whose bus refusal was a deliberate act.
• Who Was Rosalind Franklin? — Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image, Photograph 51, gave Watson and Crick the key evidence for the double helix. This is her life and the credit debate.
• Who Was Rumi? — Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet of Konya, wrote the Masnavi and the Divan-e Shams, and became the most widely read poet in the world.
• Who Was Shane Warne? — Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets, bowled the Ball of the Century in 1993 and won the 1999 World Cup with Australia. This explains his career.
• Who Was Stephen Hawking? — Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist who showed that black holes emit radiation and wrote A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018, aged 76.
• Who Was Steve Jobs? — Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was forced out in 1985, built Pixar, and returned to launch the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. He died in 2011, aged 56.
• Who Was Thomas Edison? — Thomas Edison held 1,093 US patents, invented the phonograph and the practical incandescent lamp, and built the first commercial electric power system.
• Who Was Vincent van Gogh? — Vincent van Gogh produced about 2,100 artworks in a single decade, including The Starry Night and Sunflowers, and became famous only after his death at 37.
• Who Was William Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in history, yet almost nothing is reliably known about his private life.
• Who Was William Wordsworth? — William Wordsworth launched English Romanticism with Lyrical Ballads and wrote The Prelude, the great autobiographical poem. This explains his life.
• Who Was Winston Churchill? — Winston Churchill led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his record on empire is still debated.
• Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who composed more than 600 works before his death at 35, defining the Classical era.
• Why Van Gogh Became Famous After Death — Vincent van Gogh died in 1890 almost unknown, and within a few decades his paintings were among the most loved in the world.