thank you very much. thank you off for joining us on "after words." >> guest: thank you very much, 10. it's been a pleasure. >> host: thank you. ..

to discuss his latest book barack obama the story and then take your calls, e-mails and tweets. >> david maraniss you write in barack obama the story that no life could have been more the product of randomness than that of barack obama. >> guest: it's the whole world coming together accidentally in honolulu, hawaii in 1950. a father that happens to become ill from kenya because he reads a story that describes the university of hawaii as a great place because its diversity, and a mother that has a father with a wanderlust that is never

satisfied the and he ends up selling furniture than the meat in the russian class and here comes barack obama who emerges as a whole global treen amex systems until he becomes president of the united states. >> host: >> guest: in butler county is where obama's mother grew up and natalie and the rest of the store in topeka which is the state capital because he lived there for a short time. his father, the president's great grandfather was an auto repair man and a great-grandmother was married at age 15 and a very difficult marriage but in the book begins with suicide in topeka and then stanley, the president's grandfather comes back to butler

county and that's where he reads the grandmother and the story begins but it wouldn't have happened without but suicide. >> host: we want to show a montage shot by your wife on your trip to kansas in april, 2009. >> in all conversations [inaudible conversations]

>> and the tragedy of obama's story is where his great grandmother who committed suicide and the stanwyck dunham, obama's grandfather died and they moved to a little house here down a few blocks and who the great grandfather ran a garage and auto shop on sixth avenue which is right are not of a corner. she's found dead on the night of

thanksgiving. >> [inaudible] >> we are now approaching the house. a little white two-story shotgun house, no more than 10 feet wide one house from the corner of seventh and sure it is the same house 1926. this is where she died.

[inaudible conversations] >> that break is old. >> host: how old was she when she killed herself? >> guest: she was 26. >> host: why did she kill herself? >> guest: she killed herself because of her, well, what we know is she left a suicide note that said that she was distraught over her husband's philandering so that was the immediate cause. >> host: and the was the president grandfather stanley dunham's grandmother. >> guest: she lived only to be 26 and because of that dramatic, stanley and his older brother

moved back to old eldorado and a character named christopher columbus clark that fought in the civil war. >> host: where did the grandparents meet? >> guest: they met in augusta which is about 12 or 15 miles away both in butler county sort of on the way to wichita and that is where she grew up. stand had already been out of high school for several years and matalin was a senior in high school. he was working in construction and renovation and that's where he met her. >> host: what was that life like in kansas? >> guest: their life before or after? after they are married it was sort of her parents didn't really like him or the first thing that her father had was

dark skinned and an element of race even in that and she married him secretly before she ridgely the from high school she was a very smart young woman who had always been on the honor roll until she met stanley who was slick talking out of arkansas, kansas, and sorry, and that's what she wanted. she had grown and the sophistication of hollywood and stan promised something else he promised to take her back there and then they are somewhat unstable. not the marriage was necessarily on stable but the jobs were always unstable and they never knew where they were going next said it was a rocky road.

>> host: where did the obama clan began? >> guest: it began actually in sudan. i would start the story in the small village by lake victoria to the south and east of the major city in the province which was a very poor part of kenya. it's where the little tribe is basically center the second referred largest tribe in africa and the about where the obama's found themselves. >> host: on the president's paternal side where the grandparents? >> guest: he was born in the late 1800's and was in the first wave to be westernized they had

come out and he learned english and became sort of inculcated into the british culture so he worked later as a chef and cut for many british military people and folks in nairobi and the mother came from another village in that area, and she did not -- he was a very difficult guy to live with. he had several why of this and when he moved to the area near where she grew up it was back to another home state of the clan

around lake victoria. she had enough. she had a younger wife along with him and so she ran away. she left the family when barack obama, the president's father was a very little boy. >> david maraniss his grandparents died in 2006. did president obama ever meet him? >> guest: no, he never met after the 1980's after his grandfather had died. aside from the very early days of his birth but he didn't get back to kenya until both of his grandparents were gone so there's a dramatic difference in that part of the story. >> for barack obama the story how many interviews did you do over the course of the last four years? >> guest: i would say almost

400, and i had a wonderful assistant who helped with some of the leader interviews in the story but i traveled all over the world and so everybody could find in every part of the life of president obama and his parents and grandparents. >> host: barack obama sr. was born in 1936. what was his childhood like? >> guest: from a fairly early age he was dealing with western culture in the british. he was a very smart kid. his father was difficult to get along with and was not often there mostly in the nairobi and he was growing up. he was lucky in the sense that he was smart enough to get into a very good school in that area,

and although he never totally finished he was a very smart student. they had that clash of old and new. for all of his youth and adolescence he was in a colonial country in a very poor part of the kenya, so he lived in the mud huts with cowles and no television and stuff like that. a century behind in some ways and get kenya was starting to emerge. the rebellion was beginning, the push for independence was beginning and the generalization he was a part of that.

>> host: how long were you in kenya and what did you see? what was it like to be over there? >> guest: kenya was one of the great experiences of my life. every day was unforgettable. we were there for about two weeks, and it felt like a year. every day was so rich. we flew from washington to london to nairobi and spend a couple of days interviewing people there because barack obama sr. had spent much of his career in nairobi and then after several days we drove from her nairobi across the highway up west to one of the most unforgettable drives of my life

and the experiences were so different from nairobi. the point was twofold. to find as many people as i could and interview them. he's a great young journalist and my robie and he and i have been working on different aspects of information for many months before we got there. we were incredibly lucky to also have a translator who i met in the united states who happened to be in kenya and gideon hunter from the washington post. >> host: how many interviews did you do in kenya? >> guest: i ended up doing about 40. most of them during those two weeks. a few of them over the phone leader and a few of them were people not vailable, so i provided the questions and he would conduct interviews after.

>> host: book tv traveled with you to ken and conducted an interview over there as well. we want to show you that now. >> january 15th, 2010 in western kenya as you work on the new book out of this world the making of barack obama. correct? has it been worth it? >> these days remind me why i do what i do. from morning to night it energizes me even if i get tired during the interviews but this is the reality behind so many sort of things you think you know when you don't really know. i got to see the vibrant life and things i never could see in my lifetime any other way but i

just think i'm so lucky and in these last two days we have travelled around this part of western kenya based on the kind of capital of this country, and it's the main try the out here is the tribe from which barack obama's family came. we came from a little town where we interviewed barack obama. the sister of barack obama, senior. living in a small one-room house back in the back streets of this

tiny village with only a couple couches and about five pictures and a few calendars on the wall then most of them made it to the president of the united states. to think that this woman -- you can't go anywhere from the western world to this small village in africa. it was a mind-boggling revelatory, so that is how we started today and from there we interviewed three other members of the obama plan in the area around lake victoria. they were stories you can never get from anywhere else about obama's grandfather or younger

obama. his father, barack obama senior. we watched and saw the grave site of his great-grandfather, the person for whom the name derives. a kind of amazing stuff all day. >> host: you spend a lot of time talking about the kind of situations in kenya. what importance does that to your book? >> guest: it explains a lot about barack obama, senior. and this book is more than just the biography. it's about the places that created him come the people created him starting to generations back and moving through to obama himself. his father in some ways represented the promise and the

frustrations of africa and kenya and all the more personal level there's a brilliance in the full and some of the tentative it tribalism. the second largest tried in kenya and the colonial period when the british dominated created this sort of tribalism on the different reserves in the different parts of the country so when they got independence and they got power, there was this unfortunate sort of conflict for power, and basically ever since 1963 they've been dominated by the larger tribes, and barack obama, sr. was a nationalist. he wasn't a tribal list. when he came back to kenya in

1965 and started his career, he suffered and i wanted to get the full context of that. another character in the story that fascinated is the intellectual leader. he was a major spokesman before the bullets left. he was always thought to be a possible future president of kenya. in the cold war era he was western. if they liked him and a halt in many ways he was also the patron of barack obama, senior. by the time he got to the united states the whole reason that barack obama our present exists

he organized the left the prouty 81 opinions to the united states. the presumption there was by people higher up in the leadership who are afraid that he would become president. it's never clearly established but for the man that was tried and hanged as the assassin his last words why didn't you go after and that assassination fuelled barack obama senior's frustration. >> host: what are you talking to folks about barack obama, senior the term keeps coming up and this might be misleading that if you would answer,

politically connected and political intrigue. >> guest: he was trained as an economist with at the university of hawaii and harvard before he got his ph.d.. but even a fairly brilliant macroeconomist. but his wives and all of his movements were in the government in nairobi in the ensuing decades filled with political frustrations. after just doing five days of interviews in kenya, three in nairobi and two of them out here my mind is spinning with all of the intrigue that i've heard. it's just one story after another of the manipulation and

the death threats and people losing their jobs because of tribalism or some. he was caught up in that. >> host: is that a term that has come up? >> guest: i think barack obama, senior differently had a drinking problem. many of the people i interviewed they wouldn't go that far they would just say he drank a lot. but there were a lot of locations where many of the people i've interviewed said that he loved his double double, double whiskey, a double scotch, and they really did affect his

life and they attributed to an alcoholic as a general thing but because of his family and employment ups and downs it exaggerated its. i think the word womanizer actually is used in kenya and the same way that it is in the united states partly because much of kenya is a polygamist culture. from where he came as part of the polygamist culture. his grandfather for what we've

been told has as many as 15 lives. barack obama himself had -- sr. had four wives. he was divorced from his american wives at two different points but he also -- with a minute, yeah, the word womanizer i didn't feel comfortable using it but he definitely had a lot of women in his life. it hasn't come up except one guy we interviewed said there might be children scattered all over kenya but from his wife's he had eight children and that's really

all i've been able to confirm at this point. islamic of those eight are there any talked about in here? katasa not yet, and it's silly interesting they would imply the 13 nomination. the actual half brothers and sisters we will see maybe tomorrow. >> host: you have been asked in many different ways for the remuneration. is that common in the states and how do you handle that?

>> guest: it's not common in the states and it's a fascinating -- i don't know if it is a dilemma but i've had to think about different things including cultural values and expectations, with the are giving up to talk to me, and what it means. at the "washington post," there is a -- traditionally he had the strong guest ethics rules that you could ever imagine or the editor for a couple days went down and he didn't even vote. pure and pristine. all i, myself, have always had a very strong personal ethics, but i'm operating in a different culture.

i had to make a few interesting decisions. a few months ago, someone we wanted to interview before we got here. when you visit in elder you are expected to bring a gift. it wasn't like paying to talk to him, it was. i've made up for the difference. we've gotten a few photographs and because of -- to get the photographs it is totally in pounds was set up by publishers saying why can't i pay some poor

kenyan for some? so it's been that kind of situation. >> host: you've been to law e, texas, kansas for your research on this and now you are in kenya when does the research part of it in the? >> guest: you just know when you get there. actually the research never ends. there is a point i say i am ready to start writing. i started this book the essentially the day after obama was elected president that's when i decided i'd got to do this book. i'd written a few pieces for "the washington post" before that so i had a basis of research particularly on his mother, and i think when i get home from this incredible

journey i will have the kansas side of the story pretty much completed and that's where the story begins, it's a weaving these incredible worlds that helped create this person. >> host: who came up with the title? >> guest: i did. i was just bouncing around of africa and then i set out of africa come out of dalia, kansas, indonesia, chicago, out of this world. the book is two things it's the world that created obama and then how he recreate himself so i'm not sure the proportions yet and will be important to get it right but perhaps even the first half of the book the main character isn't even on the

stage yet and the second act of the book is largely chicago with his education in california, new york and boston thrown in some but largely chicago and that is when he recreate himself as a political been, so when you think about it we are all sort of created from a lot of different strengths but i can't think of anybody with a more fascinating mix them obama. >> host: tell us about the team here. >> i can't tell you how happy i am about the people in working with. i don't know swahili which is the mother tongue of this part of kenya and most people speak english, they all don't and the

drive on the other side of the road and i would have been dead if i tried to drive myself plus there are no road signs. the places we've, i couldn't find in a million years and i'm pretty good at finding things, so i definitely needed a great driver and we got one. he is a friend and interested in politics. i needed somebody on the ground to help set up interviews and the national archives and elsewhere. i looked out and got ken who is 40-years-old, investigative journalist and kenya, very tough, straightforward, smart, savvy, political the instinctive who has helped me immeasurably and has done interpreting for me

i have beatrice who is a graduate student at the university of wisconsin and last summer when i needed documents translated my wife and i live in madison in the summer. there was one speaker who came over to my house in the afternoon to translate it for me and then i discovered that she would be here right now when we were going to come to kenya and her family is about ten minutes from one of the obama homes so she's been our interpreter today and tomorrow. there's another member of my team, too which is my wife.

>> host: she's been on a lot of your trips. >> guest: she's an environmentalist who were retired about seven years ago with and has gone on almost every major trip i've taken since then. i'm not a ground or anything but i seem like one compared to my wife is the best ambassador any person could have so she makes friends wherever we go. >> host: we're going to get there but i have one question before that. this is not a cheap trip. you have three people on the staff for a number of weeks. those and author's advanced cover all of this were just a

portion? >> guest: i can't speak for every author but this is my tenth book and i get enough of an advance to pay for all of this and and as an author i have corporation through me and lend us of that has funds that i can use for all this stuff and i do spend -- why do it if you aren't going to do it thoroughly and i couldn't have done this trip without that kind of team put together so it's not like to get an advance of what goes into making the book. >> guest: >> host: the obama family connections to i don't know who

is who. >> guest: the screen to be a challenge for me one is it is a very complicated family web and the second reason which is unavoidable unfair is the leaders of the united states can sound different and to remember who is who etc so i have to be able to do with that and that is a challenge for any writer and i have some news i've done in the past and essentially what is important to me is that the quoting somebody when you write in long narrative you aren't putting together a string of quote, you're building a narrative story so i will take elements from each of these people i've interviewed into the

story by telling and some of the mold. some of the monk and they will appear in ways that the family tree will become understandable that your right there are different -- there's the whole obama clan in one section of the kindu bay area which the united states knows better and that is where mama ciro lives that is obama's step grandmother. she's the one of the he goes to visit and thinks that is where the obamas are from. there's a whole group of obamas i'm going to deal with any more substantive way than what the zero of where the story comes from the reminded me a little bit of what i was doing in the

clinton book and it was in clinton's acceptance they had a film in southwestern arkansas and the simplicity of local life and he's from hot springs, a completely different place when with a dark side to it. the obama story is not the ciro and the story of his father takes place somewhere else and that is where the section of the book will start. >> host: one final question. we want to introduce their viewers [inaudible] >> leo you cannot make up.

he belongs in an awful. he's 73-years-old triet he walks around with a menacing sort of club, she has a deep voice and laugh and he seems to know everybody in africa from the area the president of tanzania, the dictator of ugonda back in the 70's and 80's to everybody in kenya and he traveled with us. we met him yesterday and had three or four hours of fascinating discussions and then he traveled with us today in the morning and he was jury close to barack obama sr. and the patron and knows all of the political intrigue of kenya, and a lot of the personal promise was barack

obama senior. >> was he valuable and? did you have to listen carefully to what was said? you can't go on a trip like this, so i spend months studying the kenyan politics learning everything i could going to an archived at the university of syracuse i knew a lot of the background if you had a conversation with leo you wouldn't understand a word he said but i knew where he was going and have the beginnings of the stories and so yes i could piece it together yet it filled in 100 holes in the politics of

obama senior personal life. >> host: last question you found and went to the house president obama stayed at a 1987. where was it? we are going to show the video. you looked excited. >> guest: that is one of the moment i described in this interview we just think i am right here. this is an incredible place and impossible to find just out of the blue. what is called the obama clan compound in a little tiny village or compound in kendu bay

and it's just some fun another one of those. it had a cement floor but we were told it wasn't there it was just mud and he spent nights there when he was visiting the area in that part of the plan on his journey through africa. it has nothing to do with how i feel about obama and i don't approach it that way any way. he's just the main character of my book. it has nothing to do with with and i like or dislike him. has to do with the history of seeing this little place before anybody knew who the hell barack obama was. he was 26-years-old making the journey back to the land he had

never seen before. i was looking at this spot on the floor where he slept on the nights in 1987 and it just it didn't overwhelm me but it made me realize that to see history is more powerful than to just think about or read about it. i'm able to portray it brings my work alive. >> host: that interview was shot over two years ago. anything you would like to change? >> guest: i would like to change my look [laughter] a couple things that have changed since then is obviously the title of the book. we determined out of this world even though it was meant as a global character could imply something else so scrap that

coming into my publisher actually came up with the world brilliant idea so that is what we ended up with and i'm very happy about. i ended the book at a place i didn't extract because i got so much information about a ten year period from the time he left honolulu to go to college when he finished his community organizing to do to harvard. he's become so important in terms of the evolution on his search for identity that it can the west feared of the book and there will be another volume someday but this is the book, so the ark of the book is

different. the essence is the same. >> the book ends instead of 2004 in 99 as he's going off to boston, correct, to harvard law school? so barack obama is finally going to make an appearance in your book. it's about halfway through the book. >> guest: it's not half way. it's 54 pages into the 584 page book. >> host: we get to hawaii. how did his parents meet? >> guest: his mother was 17-years-old freshman at the university. >> host: take it one step back. how did she get to hawaii? >> guest: because her father who'd been a furniture salesman in mercer island or seattle washington, this was right next to seattle, he got a job selling furniture in honolulu and he was

always looking for the next thing to be moved from kansas to california several times went from seattle to hawaii said she came and was only 17 when she graduated from high school, excellent public school in seattle. but she was the only child. her name was stanley iain. i can tell you the story on that if you want some other time but in the case, she's there as a freshman. barack obama had been there since 1959 also an undergraduate of whom he was much older and they both signed up for russian after sputnik and schools all over were starting to teach russians. was the most important things the public's could do to prepare for the cold war so they both ended up in a russian plus and that's where the net.

>> how long did they know each other before they got married? >> guest: the new each other for five months. gannet in september and got married in february. she got pregnant before that, so everything about it was -- it wasn't a normal courtship, let me put it that way. >> quadcore madeleine and stanley's reaction to occur bringing home and african blacks >> guest: madelin told another biographer -- she died before i started this book. david who did the first book said madeleine described obama senior to him as very strange. and of course of reveals around him.

beauvis were not happy. was very difficult for them and it wasn't necessarily because of race is to read his personality of their daughter was only 17 when they met and she got pregnant and she was an incredibly intelligent young woman so it had a difficult effect on her life. they didn't know, but another element is that obama, senior -- and i notice of this why was reluctant to use the word womanizer, but he was and he was doing that in honolulu so she is by no means the only american woman he had been with. >> host: barack obama senior married first four times. did they ever get divorced? >> guest: interesting.

they got married in kenya and according to obama, senior you could just say i'm divorcing my wife and that was eight when stanley myriad barack obama senior she didn't know he was already married. she was under the impression he was divorced which he wasn't so in essence he was a polygamist when he married her. estimate the married in february and legally married through 1964 barack obama sr. was also married to ruth baker we will talk about leader and his final marriage was one to one jael. how many children did barack obama senior have on how many have siblings does he have?

>> there are a couple of -- i don't want to get too far into that but i'm not sure the paternity. it could be as many as eight. >> back to hawaii, february 1961 barack obama senior and speed will get married. the president is for 1961 and by the end of the first month of his life, ann has taken him to seattle. >> there is a lot surrounding the period that has nothing to do with the idea of him being born in mumbai or some other place. the documents are completely fabricated. he was born in honolulu on august 4th. but as he would tell the story later in his own memoir it wasn't until his father left for harvard that the family split up and even the reasons for that are not what he says in the

book. but shortly after he was born on his mother went back to seattle and enrolled part-time in extension courses at the university of washington so they never really lived together and when i interviewed all of the people that knew barack senior before he graduated and left only one person could even remember ann. there was a mystery she wasn't even there. she was in seattle. >> how was she in seattle? >> about a year and a half as a single mother. she had babysitters and went to school part time, got herself back together. the semester had been difficult because she got pregnant so she had to sort of reading herself academically and she did that. after barack sr. had left, she

came back. >> 1962 to 1967 they were back in honolulu. who is her second husband? >> her second husband is another international by from indonesia. she met him at the university of hawaii. he had flown from the east-west center which brought students from various countries and brought americans to honolulu to go to asia were and that's where she met him. he was a tennis player and a very gregarious at that time. >> at what point did they move to jakarta? >> he moved back first. both barack, sr. and lola

watched by the - and different regulations on these us and so long so lola could only stand a short time. he kept trying to extend the visa after he married her and he got certain jobs he said were related to the geography that he learned and typography in honolulu to keep him there but eventually it was changed in very political ways and he was forced to go back and 66. in 67 in october, obama and his mother moved back. >> so the president lived in indonesia from 67 to 71, age six through ten. >> just about, yes. >> while you were in jakarta you found the school where obama went to school.

>> [inaudible] >> is that in the exact chair? this is mardy so he is our witness. >> where did he sit? in the back? >> in the corner in the back? >> in the middle in the back.

[inaudible conversations] >> that school is a statute, david maraniss. islamic actually the statue is out of the second school that he went to with shorts and a short sleeve shirt. the second school had more money than the first one. the catholic school he went for two and a half years and then the family moved, he got another job and if more money. >> was that put up after -- >> was a couple years ago and was very controversial. there were people that didn't want the statue to go up. obama i think if he ran for

president of indonesia would win in a landslide but nonetheless, there is everyone in the world has some controversy about any politician. there were some questions about it but not everybody in indonesia is proud. >> what was his life like in jakarta? >> he was completely immersed. imagine being a 6-year-old kid thrown into a culture you don't know the language and this sort of middle class section of town with narrow alleyways and the exotic sounds and smells of a big city of jakarta with your mother going to work and father riding a bike to his job and just being thrown into the neighborhood kids that was his life and he had acted. he had to adapt to the his life is a series of adaptations. >> why did he leave jakarta in

1971? >> he left because his mother -- by the way, there's an international school his mother couldn't afford to send him there. for those three and a half years he was in the native language. she was looking up at 4:00 in the morning to teach him with english schoolbooks to supplement but it was very difficult, and the whole process was something she realized. she was still married and wanted to stay but he is coming to the point she has to make a key decision. it turned out he could get into the best elite school in honolulu so he went back in fifth grade to start. >> and he lived with his

grandparents in an apartment? >> by that time they moved into an apartment, five blocks from the school and he lived there from fifth grade to his senior year. this mix of ages 11 to 18 he lived with his grandparents in honolulu. >> i should correct that. there's a period where his mother did come back to study graduate school. they lived a couple of blocks away and then go to indonesia again. the bulk of that period. so that was 7179. pushback in honolulu. what was his life like? what did he study and what kind of grades did he get? >> when he got becky was very.

he took the name so it wouldn't be confusing and indonesia to degette his life there, he was a fine student. he wasn't a serious student by any means. he was smart enough to get by, more than get by with his grades even applying himself too hard. his real love was basketball, which is kind of an interesting twist.

obama's great uncle on his mothers side is a a very good basketball player. but basketball is also way young black coats could identify with african-americans in a way that was the cd team -- the city game besides being said they just fun to play. i think that really is one of the central themes of his adolescent. >> host: you write, david maraniss and "barack obama: the story," he could not doubt that have these being in his young life his father had left in the

spring to years of unpredictability and violence. just go to some sort of speculative, but when you sit at the history of barack obama senior, it's not. it's reality in a very difficult reality. and it grows out of what happened after. after he had that very short time together at harvard, he met another american woman, bruce baker. just like with dan, you sort of became entranced by him. she caught him as manic and she was back to kenya with him coming to nairobi and married him. and i interviewed her. i was the first reporter to interview her. sally jacobsen has written a next one book on barack senior and that's the way these things go and more power to sally and

biographers who come after. the store and assign and deeper and deeper. but in any case, when i touch every speaker, she told me the story of how a piece of barack senior was, that he beat her, was an alcoholic, incredibly difficult to live with. that would've been the fate of dairy if they'd been together. >> host: while in kenya, we talk to you about bruce baker. i went to show just a little piece of video. >> where is he now? [inaudible] the interview is a little later. >> david, who was not?

>> alice alisa alli nesbitt, an american who lives in the bus, who is also a writer. lisa has been instrumental in helping me connect the root tunis on joe, was barack obama senior's third wife, second american way. >> has she tacked to the media quiet >> she has never talked to anyone. this is one of the key

interviews. >> is the only interview that over here. was it worth coming over for? >> that is a tough question. yeah. it's too hypothetical. >> host: thank you for giving me socratic. she helped pythagoras baker and that was very important. in that interview, i'll never forget sitting in the back of the kenner carts on the lawn for several hours and was pouring our hearts out. >> host: after she married barack obama she divorced him in state in kenya. just as she did. she married an african and took that name and had two children by barack senior and i matter

they her second husband. she stayed the whole time. she's still very much part of the nairobi community and as renée kenner curtain there for many years. posted may 1864 to 1963 they were married. how long had she known him before she essentially quit: 30 kenya? just as she finished school, but was teaching by that point. she no longer new. one of those very quick things. what she did know is the reason he left cambridge was because he was kicked out. the ins and harvard have enough of them. drinking and women. so you know, they've been following very closely. i want to go back to one little thing just because the whole

purse or idea is troublesome to me and to many historian. there are ins documents that show barack obama senior all this days before and after. there's no way he could've gone anywhere else and had that baby. it was in honolulu. so he was kicked out of harvard before he got his phd arrest to go back to nairobi. so he was back. he caught himself dr. from then on, even though he never finishes dissertation. it was brilliant. she followed in a few months later and showed up in nairobi, ready to go. >> host: back to your boat, "barack obama: the story", you write what barack learned was devastating, disillusioning. carefully constructed by his mother was shattered. far from what he had been portrayed, not the moral man, not the freedom fighter, not the

polished professional. brilliant yes, the splintered by drinking them in despair, dissolution of disappointment. >> host: it is quite amazing to think about impediments to torah, obama said through in her dealings with her son, barack and why she told them the story she did was purely out of love. she never said a word about barack obama senior because she didn't want to destroy this little boy who had enough other things to deal with in his life as a half black, half white kid in honolulu. so i completely understand why she created this mythology about him. and you know coming year by year, as he grew, he started to understand to some degree the reality had to be different from

what he had been told, but it wasn't until he got to kenya himself he understood. >> host: in your introduction, david, maraniss, he surely thought he tried to short out his identity. hi, you cannot argue that you viewed primarily through racial lunch can lead to the root causes of his feelings about a misunderstanding of its responses to it. >> guest: well, this is not in any way to diminish the role that race plays information. it's essential. but there's another thing about bair, which is his search for a daddy and home is a lot to do with race, but also this involved with the dean and dean laughed. his father left with a wrist by kuwait, he left before he was barely conscious. his mother, even as much as as

much as she loves him and inculcated her philosophy of life, she was gone for most of his formative adolescent years. so i looked on is universal in a sense it transcends race. the struggles that he had were not just about race. i mean, certainly is a key to it, bake you can't look at his life and just view it through the racial lines. >> host: and about 15 minutes, we will begin taking your calls for david maraniss, and one june 19 will publish his 10th book, "barack obama: the story." we are getting a preview of the book tonight on booktv. we will put up the phone numbers. if you like to dial-in and start asking questions for other, please go ahead and do so. we will put the phone numbers. if you'd like to dial-in and start asking questions for other, please go ahead and do so. if you live in the eastern central time zone, 202-737-0002 for those in the mountain pacific time zone you can also send an e-mail.

booktv@c-span.org. or ask a question via twitter. twitter.com/booktv. it will all begin 15 or 20 minutes when they begin taking your calls. jeff cox, classmate of the president at puno high school. here's a quote and mrs. jeff cox talking. there he had the ability to project cool it seemed to me that almost a nonchalant was all part of the image thing, not just of him, but generally in hawaii, where in my mind there is some line between sophisticated passionate interest slacker or leave the end. exuded sophisticated detachment. he has his act together in a way. he understood how things worked maybe a little better than the rest of them. >> guest: you know, when he 15, 16 years old, just cox decided about his classmate you can see the characteristics today presidency since he hasn't

changed all that much. the broader reason for that was attachment has to do with hawaii. as jeff points out there's a native hawaiian beam or whatever else is going to run you just keep cool, man. that is a sensibility that kerry and his buddies, you know, who have some of his buddies have what they call a game, which is basically basketball and smoking dope. you know, just be cool and that is part of hawaii. it is part of their east formative years. and he's always had that. another aspect to it is more developed areas they did, i would say, to politics, which is that in this country and all of its racial dynamics and explosiveness, a black person wants to rise in politics has to stay cool. unfortunately it's just part of

the mandate of this country. >> how much pot smoking did the president do? >> he doesn't read them particulars about that. you know, the whole notion of bill clinton saying never inhaled. when jay leno asked him about it. without going overboard, may book documents it pretty thoroughly. that's what they did. he has a thing called ta, total absorption which meant not only did you inhale, but everything in the car when you're smoking it. and so that was part of his existence during that period. postcode david maraniss, winded dairy become barack? >> guest: it was very gradual. it started with the college in los angeles he attended for his freshman and sophomore years and there are few people dare, an

african student at one of the african-americans and some others who started calling him barack when they found out that was his name and like so many college students, they start to really go back and find their identity and college and that is what he was searching for it. but many of the occidental classmates called him very. even when he got to new york, columbia, there were people who called in dairy and some barack. >> host: why did he choose accidental artist who the am i transferred to columbia? >> guest: teachers accidental because he got a partial scholarship and he knew a lot of people going there. the way he tells the story there were some girl from brooklyn who he met in honolulu before that in that area and said he got attracted to go for that reason. occidental was like putting a the next stop.

it was comfortable, very beautiful, bucolic, small contained, you eat. and you know, california sunshine was just like to put a hollow sunshine. so it was very comfortable. it was a very important to years. it really started to expand intellectual event. he got his first sense of destiny during those two years, but he left because it was too much like put a hollow. he wanted to experience the world. it takes him from honolulu to los angeles to new york and eventually chicago. it is important to get to new york first. >> host: transfers to columbia. his first night in new york city, where did he spend it? >> guest: he writes about this in his memoir. there's a bit dubious, but interview the people and it

turns out to be true. he was locked out of that the spending a night in a part that would have been either. he couldn't get the keys have been a landmark. your subletting from a friend of a friend of his mother's. and so he is left outside with a suitcase. so half the dickey said terry had called and finally came over there the next morning. >> host: genevieve makes the scene in new york city. who is genevieve? >> guest: genevieve cook, an australian who's mother -- mother's second marriage was a notable american does just that said they had american ties to genevieve with the private high school in new york state than

software and then new york city at bat -- bob obama after they came from. they had a lot in common. they both had indignation connections. her father and mother had lived in indonesia. he was a diplomat, associate that there is of god in the late 1960s were young. as they are, she felt like an outsider because she, like many children of diplomats do, they don't feel connections to any place. her family would send me a prayer cracks, but she never felt connected to that, sushi and bury -- barack both had this connection as outsiders with indignation connections as well. the baby came lovers and his

girlfriend for quite a while. >> host: how did she get ahold of her? were the first release to talk to her at length? >> guest: it took two years and it was just hard work. i'm a part of me and julie k2 is a fabulous researcher at the washington post and gabriel banks who is a researcher and she was living in los angeles. the three events triangulate did everything and eventually found her. i can't tell all of that story because to protect her not because of the book, but because those she had an abusive ex-husband that we don't want to find her. but in any case, she's thousands of miles away and once we started with just the named genevieve, eventually i found --

we found a wedding announcement in "the new york times" to bring a lot of bells because it had indignation and it, northwest connecticut and had and obama in his memoir rates about a new york girlfriend taking up to her family estates in the pond and the wild area astoundingly connecticut. and then there is steady and court records say he found another her contractor down and made the call. we had a lot of conversations through time. >> host: you write in your book, dino mauch mood you can tell who he is in a minute, but can't be a university classmate of the president to be honest i've never had many black friends. i saw those which have been most markedly during the period i was very close to him. iraq was the most illiterate

person i ever met in terms of constructing his own identity and his achievements -- his achievement was an achievement of identity in the modern world. first the shift from not international to american, then not white, but black. >> host: mauch mood was a group of pakistani friends that barack had been started in occidental and going to new york. he made friends with several pakistanis who came to occidental and and a shared to an internationalist perspective, which he had lived in indonesia and his mother was buried and he was neither black nor white. he was searching for himself and he was comfortable with these guys. so when he got to new york, some of his pakistani friends had moved they are and their friends were there. he was at columbia law school.

and it's true. i mean, obama moved to new york to be closer to harlem and to find his blackness, but it did happen today. president obama but i interview to the oval office he made no lasting effort during his four years in new york. buddy starting to make that transition in the ark of his search for home. and that change was starting to have been an 3% to three saw that going on and took him to chicago. >> host: wedded to presidents' day in new york after graduating columbia? >> guest: he wanted to get into community organizing. he was trying to get john surry could. he applied for a job in chicago got elected mayor there. he didn't get anything. so the best he could do was stay in new york. he didn't want to go back to honolulu.

he didn't have anyplace else, so we stayed there and as he put it, he would try and make money for a year, so he got a job at sort of a magazine/consulting outfit called douglas international for about a year and he really didn't like it there. it was sort of in the business world, which held no interest to him. that is. when when they talked a lot endocytic. when he met genevieve. >> host: david maraniss, this could go back to the quote we started this program was. no product to be more than the randomness that barack obama appeared chicago became random, the fact he got to chicago? >> guest: i wouldn't quite call a friend because the election of harold washington as the first african american mayor of chicago is very attracted to him. chicago is a point to be at that point. as i read in the book come within a six-month period, three people write in chicago.

oprah winfrey became one of the most people of the world. michael jordan came. opera is about to study showed that barack obama became anonymously, arguably today the most famous of those three. >> host: jerry kelman, chicago community organizer, you quote him. obama was one of the most cautious people i've ever met in my life. he was not unwilling to take risk, but was just a strange combination of someone who would have to weigh everything to death and then take a dramatic risk at the end. >> host: that sounds a lot late president obama two. in some ways the care of his state can be booked through out his grace and career. as a currently organizer, the whole notion, the whole risky training method for community organizing was to take action. power does not -- it's a vacuum.

you have to seize it. the poor people on the southside of chicago. one of three or four other mentors or bosses said the same thing. the rock was sort of a different story. he was looking for ways to not confront, but achieve in other races that could be very frustrating at times, but it also helped them get where he wanted to go. >> host: while he was there is a 20 organizer, what was the president playfully? were to be with? were to be where? >> guest: he lived in hyde park near the university of chicago come a part of chicago and the most integrated part of the city, a city that is notorious and perhaps the segregated big city in the united states. that is what the commission called in 1959 and still was true to different degrees in the late 80s when obama got there. hyde park was the pocket of

integration. so he was comfortable there. and you spend every day going to the southside, which was 99% african-american, a sprawling, oblique breech area coverage in terms of personality, which is what he really felt at home for the first time in his life. he was embraced by a group of older black women who sort of took him under his wing and one can and just created a sense for him that he never felt before. but it was incredibly frustrating. community organizing that is 95% of the time and keep banging your head trying to get change done. so during that period, he became a community organizer largely out of his mother's sensibility. you know, she didn't organizing of a different sort trying to help poor women, artisans

survive in a male-dominated culture. you know, her beliefs were transferred to him. that's why he did it. but his mother was naïve in terms of the power realities of the world. during those three years, on the southside he started to see what powermad, how you got it and what he needed to really observe power and also took him into politics. so that is why my book ends there because he's learned everything. he found his home in chicago. the show is adamant that in some senses she's a magnet of the book because you see him eventually find that woman, michelle. and also figures himself out, his self identity and what he wants out of life, which is political power and he needs to go to harvard and come back to

really get into that life. >> host: in the interview conducted with the president of every 10, 2011, you put the president as saying there is no doubt that when i retained my politics is a sense that the only way i could have a sturdy sense of identity of who i last depended on digging beneath the surface differences of people. the only way my life makes sense is that regardless of culture, race religion try some commonality. these essential human truth compassion and hope some moral precepts are universal. just go and somebody is another variation he said in the speech that made famous in the 2004 keynote address at the democratic national convention in boston, where he said there's a red states blue states, but the united states. he presented himself as the personification of that notion. his presidency has been a rude awakening in terms of how far

you can take that. so he has been dealing with that. the promise and frustrations of that idea ever sense. as i'm sure we'll both be experiencing the telephone calls, for the show. >> host: your book ends in 1989, "barack obama: the story." he said there's another volume coming? >> guest: added y2k committed to 40 years of robert caro, so assertive cat that on the down low, but i had every intention and i've done a lot of reporting that the later years, which influences the book even though they're not in it. and i don't want to do a quickie. i tried a rate for history documents coming out later and i want to be patient. >> host: to go against 1989, but at this point, barack obama so far 1961, born in honolulu 61

to 62 that in seattle. 62 to 67 back to honolulu into jakarta. in tunisia. back to honolulu, 71 to 79. los angeles, said in a to 81 while he attended occidental. vendor to new york for columbia that their four years from 1981 to 1985. in chicago for the first time in 1885 to 1989. then off to harvard law school. two more pieces of the book i want to ask you about so we can tie the stories together. now we are in 1989. where is his father? >> guest: his father is dead. he died in 1882 in a car accident driving home drunk from sort of a makeshift bar area near the nairobi hospital to his fourth wife's house. but we would never be we saw the

streets in the area with a tragic accident occurred. who is almost inevitable. he'd been in many very serious accidents, drunk driving several times in his life and that one took life. >> host: his grandparents. are they still lead at this point? and his mother? >> guest: yes, all three are alive. database first and and early 1990s. then his mother dies right before his book comes out, "dreams from my father". i'm the first iteration of that book in 1995. of uterine cancer at age 52 i believe sushi never got to see his political career at all. i've been matalin, the grandmother, in many ways his

strong figure he died three days before he was allowed to president. hosts are too close. by the time barack had we chicago whitmire was in the 10th grade, the grandfather had retired after 20 years in the furniture business in another 20 selling insurance. the glib salesman had ended his life's work which he never liked them ever did well. as a smart man who would not come close to fulfilling his potential. during the years. look at them, the grandson alternated between taking pleasure in outsmarting the old guy into its accommodation of sadness and anger, witnessing the despair of someone who was unfulfilled annual survey, mr. maraniss, there is nothing publicly excessive about their grand mother who then and always to be a significant and underappreciated influence on

barack, in particular, in terms of his personality and possibilities of his life. talk could not tolerate gossip being that she kept her own troubles, her struggle with alcoholism private. >> guest: i should say and i don't mean to correct you, but it's pronounced shoot because it comes from two to. those are his grandparents. the grandmother -- i done a lot of reporting about the grandmother and what a rock she was in the family. president obama acknowledged to me during the interview that she too was an alcoholic. and both of them are fascinated carried yours. the grandfather without the tragic ending is a death of a

salesman. he's got all the big coats, studying at the very moment that the to wednesday and told matalin that he had been to california company william syria and john steinbeck and was going to be a writer. they had all these ratings yet done the been matalin's brother went into the trunk and there is nothing in there. that is sort of the fantastic life is family. and mandolin, you know, had these greater ambitions. purple model with bette davis. she wanted to be sophisticated and the moment she married dan diamond she was she would have to carry the load in this relationship. she was incredibly dependable and rose to the office of vice president of the bank in hawaii. president obama when i interviewed him describe the characters that have not been to

much if interesting. he said he was a devotee of the very popular show in its grandmother was like peggy, who rises from the secretary to one of the great at people in that show. so you know, it wasn't always easy for berry to live in that family, but he never felt unloved. and interestingly stand was more problematic and really adored and showed as much attention as he could, even though he was trouble in other ways. and matalin was always there for him even though he wasn't an emotional person. she wasn't the type who would say i love you, barry or my aunt for any grandkids of that sort. but she was the dependable come a pragmatic one. >> host: prefer the last hour and a half have been talking with david maraniss, author of

"barack obama: the story." this is his 10th book in its your turn if you say and work e-mail or tweet. numbers are on the screen. the e-mail address, but tv@c-span at her. correct twitter.com/booktv. david maraniss will begin taking this in just a minute. david maraniss, in your book on the reference transfer my father quite a bit. here's a little bit from president obama in 2004 for talking about his autobiography. >> you know, just had an appearance on charlie rose. he was asking me, how does the book connect with your politics? it's very clear to me there is a direct line between the subject matter contained in "dreams from my father" and the types of politics i aspire to. because essentially what this story is about is a boy born to

a father from kenya and a mother from kansas in hawaii with an unusual name who traveled to indonesia, came back, found himself in chicago work in some of the lowest income neighborhoods in the country and then traveled back to africa and somehow was able to weave together a workable meaning for his life as an african-american, as an american and as somebody who's part of the broader human family. and that was not an easy task. it wasn't an easy task not because i did not have some enormous love for my family. i did. it wasn't because they didn't

have people help would be every step of the way. i had that whole. but it was because i found myself bored astride a nation in a world that is so often debated, divided along lines of race, divided along lines of class, divided along lines of religion. so we had this enormous tragic history that all of us confront whatever our backgrounds are come with a white, black, hispanic, asian, muslim, or christian. the notion that in fact in the words of a great writer who happened to win a nobel prize, william faulkner said the past is never dead and buried isn't even past. i think all of us are confronting constantly our

history and slavery in this country. we are confronting the history and problems that arose of colonialism are confronting those scars of violence and oppression and struggle in difficulty and hope not only on the larger canvas of history, but also within their own families. and for me, it was not entirely obvious how in fact i was going to be look to integrate and pull together all these different strands of my life. it's a part of my challenge growing up was to figure out, hideaway function of someone who is black, but also has white blood in the? have a function of someone who is american and takes pride in

understand the enormous blessings that come with being an american, but is also able to recognize that i am part of something larger than just a nationstate? >> host: david maraniss, the president has talked about those concepts before. what did you find in "dreams from my father" that is either inconsistent or not completely accurate? >> guest: well, when i talked with him, i gave him a introduction to the book and i told, you said you called my book fiction peder said no i complimented you instead it's literature. there's memoir. he was turning from his own memory that his family taught him and also he was ready in the construct of the theme of race,

celebrity name flowed through that. when i found the real history it was in so many different respects like the mythology of the family telling him that his indonesian stepfather had died fighting the colonial dutch commode in fact he fell out and i changed the troops in this house. some of the carrier serves that barack obama wrote about in his book, in his memoir he made minor figures in his real life. >> host: would begin this program with a quote from a real-life could've been more a product of randomness than that of barack obama. kansas, kenya, why can indonesia, los angeles, new york, chicago is where you visited in your research. this book and in 1989 as the president is getting any yellow dots and good harvard high school. >> guest: it does and from then on he knows where it's

going. >> host: dave chase e-mails and from arlington, tennessee. david, are you embarking on a robert carroll. uris are the different senses project started long after lbj had died. how the prices be different if you begin with the president very much alive. i've enjoyed your boat. >> guest: thank you for asking that that be honored in any way to be compared to robert carroll. i am not embarking on a five volume enterprise i don't think. i'm planning on two books. you are very perceptive and a question about writing someone who is alive. that is why i haven't talked too much about the next volume will come out. i wanted to ask for history, just as they want every book i rate to less history. i am not going to rush it. i know there'll be many documents coming out later and i'm going to be patiently for

those. >> host: david maraniss, you begin your book in el dorado, kansas and finish in el dorado. what is the significance? >> guest: it is a spanish word. all the radio, kansas like so many alternate is to bring the country are named for el dorado, which is el dorado, which is the search for gold. or el dorado, the golden man come asserted the conquistador and steered this mythological city young person who's all in gold. and alterative kansas was on a beautiful alcide along the river, so the people who first sounded are called eldorado. a user symbolically in the book as a search for for a special place. the families to creative barack obama went on this search for el

dorado and he is certainly in a somite founded in a sense of the white house. >> host: the first call for you concert el dorado, kansas. sonya, good evening. you're on with david maraniss, "barack obama: the story." >> caller: hello, david and peter. i'm a great fan of both of you. or you're into view in style in david for the obvious. the benefit of your spread on time. i'm curious, how is barack obama cites continual adaptation prepared and perhaps more than any other president for demands of the current state of the u.s. presidency? >> guest: well, it helps them get there. i think the promise of his ability to transcend, he raised an party and so on are the famous speech in 2004 had an appeal possible greatness. and i think sometimes the presidency but also hurt him in

the sense that those 10 years i read about in the book where he figures himself out the integrated personality starting from the time he got to occidental until he leaves for harvard is a difficult process, but he did sort of find an integrated personality. and so then he gets to the white house and the ceiling and a contentious, to say the least, environment. he thinks to himself, they could figure contradictions of my own life, why can't congress or this country? so it doesn't necessarily have to transactional capabilities that the last president to read about, bill clinton has in terms of survival skills. but he does have an ability to avoid traps, which used shown throughout his whole life. and so there are times, like i said this month where he peers a little bit behind, slipping.

and usually the modern political press and process overreacts to that and you'll find out that president obama has been thinking a couple steps ahead. >> host: david maraniss come in this e-mail regarding president upon this time at columbia. do we know and if the classes he took? we defined students in classes with him? >> guest: the answer is yes. a full chapter on columbia colombia considers sorted the mystery part of his life because he doesn't write about it much in his own memoir and early biographers had a difficult time finding people in his classes. two explanations for why was difficult at first. once he was a transfer student as a junior and transfer students are not allowed. so he never had that homogenization process of being in a dorm with other students. the second part was that he was

undergoing a sort of internal search during the period. i found many, many -- we found many students who are freshmen and sophomores in various classes with them. but it's still a valid point that he didn't make too many new friends they are. i found a girlfriend who wrote letters that, who had gone to occidental during that period. his first roommate was phil garner, who is also a transfer student from colombia to occidental. they took classes together. so there's plenty of evidence of what he was doing there. but he was not making a major impression. but though clinton, if you were to school, every student would know him so much they'd be sick of him within a month. but barack obama there were people who had two years and never knew him. >> host: attacked but his girlfriend at columbia lehto, genevieve.

i want to read a quote from the book. genevieve and barack top that reads quite often. as part of his inner need to find a scent of belonging. at times he confessed to her that he felt like an imposter because he was so way. there was hardly a black bone in his body. he doubted there were any black women who truly feel comfortable with. >> host: the same genevieve cook also hurt she predicted he would find a strong, bubbly black women and that's what he really needed. she could see that and could not herself. but she could see michelle coming. and she saw that slow transformation when he was leaving for chicago, you know, he was expressing nervousness about plunging into a completely black world, but he knew he had to do it and he did it and that this was sort of he founded chicago. >> host: you can contact david maraniss by phone, e-mail or tweet. earlier this week we sent a notice to a group of folks who

follow wes on tout, kind of the video tweet and we've gotten responses for david maraniss and we want to show one a get is the answer. >> hi, david. i have a question. president obama was not in politics, what other line of work he thinks he would've been in? banks. >> guest: yes, it was the line of work he was then right before politics, which was writing. i think he wanted to be a writer. many of his friends in that. thought he would be a writer. his memoir shows vibrating capacity as to his letters. and so, he also talked about wanting to be involved, not an community organization, but some larger form of nonelective, maybe and geopolitics. but i think his name of the

spray. >> host: you write wherever he went to chicago he a pen and paper with him. he constantly jotted notes are doodled since his lower schooldays and put hope, when he got into superhero contacts he had sketched figures and faces and as the months went by his identity intensified, even as he became more absurd that this community organizing work. >> guest: he went a lot of short stories in chicago and i only wish i could've found that. i interviewed several people would read them but didn't keep them. so i had with the letters. he kept a journal for many, many years. when the time he left hawaii other way for harvard law school. and probably beyond. a soprano about. >> host: next call comes from portland, oregon. cc, good evening. booktv on c-span 2. >> caller: hi, i was wondering, what is the role of race in your decision to write the book.

thank you. >> host: could you explain what you mean by that question. >> guest: the fact that he's the first african-american president. what is it about barack obama that's so remarkable outside of his race. if he was white with it be written about him? it seems like everyone is so fascinated obviously because he is black. i am just wondering how was him being a white van, would his book -- which he tackled the subject at hand. most people don't write about presidents until later. if they do, it seems that people are just fascinated with unpacking every aspect of who is barack obama. and so i am under the degree to which race as a factor in that. >> guest: that's a very good question. i appreciate it. i can't put it in two percentages. barack obama is the first african-american president in our history.

that makes him a unique figure who will be written about not just by me, but by historians for the next 100 or 200 years because of that very fact and what it means. and certainly, my fascination as with sociology and culture in the forces that shape people and how they think and and what they do and raises a very important part of that. so it's not by any means all this book is about. it's about so many other factors when a matter of fact in some ways by focusing on race and barack obama, as i read an the introduction, it's a slight misunderstanding of how we became what he did. there's so many other parts of him that have nothing to do with race. i read about bill clinton. he is a white guy. i read about him when he was president for the very same reason. i thought his life story, how we got to where he got in the way i

could use modern american and global forces to write about it all led me to want to do this for. >> host: choice mp alice, washington. cohabit your question for david maraniss. >> caller: first of all, thank you for both tv and c-span. my question has to do with the classes that president obama to get to occidental and columbia. i am curious about what he wanted to study or what he did study. >> guest: , accidental, though school is actually they had soared as a grand dean in the classics. so you have to study a potted history and english in both the those schools, just mandatory classes. adox at all, he focused on political science and english. at columbia county had to take

mandatory courses in the classics and also political science. the series focuses. >> host: next call comes from pasadena, california. alan, please go ahead. >> caller: hello, booktv. i think you guys are wonderful and very informative. i'd like to ask david a two-part question. and the question is one, as you research for your book, did you believe that the path of barack obama was destined? and two, teach you have a chance to really expound at any point of barack obama is the first generation and also the first black president decided the fact that most people don't understand the challenges that even second, third generations would have to become president america? thank you.

>> guest: the question of destiny is a difficult one for any historian because my basic feeling is misunderstandings in accidents in coincidence is basically comes out of a certain amount of chaos above the planning that nonetheless goes into it. i can tell you that about the time barack obama reached college, he started to have a sense within himself that he was put on this earth for a purpose, that there is a sense of destiny and that is sensitive to what drove him from that point on and took him to the white house. in terms of generations, i guess you are talking about immigrants in that sense? >> host: yeah, he was a first generation in a sense because his father was from kenya. >> guest: egad, i think obama had a peculiar set of

circumstances to transcend even first-generation and the grand because his father wasn't around and his mother wasn't there for several years. so he had to deal not only with that then says first generation immigrants, but also just with a more universal sensibility as someone who has not abandoned, but had to make his own way. >> host: this is david maraniss' 10th book. he's written up in severity, bill clinton roberto clemente among others. each spend about four years researching barack obama's story. how does this compare to other books as far as intensity, research, et cetera, et cetera? >> guest: biorhythm seems to be about three and half years for that. this took a little longer, but it's some ways three books in one. this story at the kenyan side of the family, kansas side of the

family and the result of that, barack obama. i wanted all of the whole world to come together in one book. it took around the world, probably traveled 50,000 plus miles to kenya in indonesia and all the places, including the first caller in el dorado, we went there and reset during easter sunday and in wal-mart and the only place we could find to be. we loved pete and el dorado. so, this book -- i've had a couple of really challenging books than i would say that my book on vietnam in the 60s and this book compared in a sense in trying to weave different worlds together into one narrative and hold it all together. >> host: you can go to david maraniss.com if you'd like to see the whole list of all nine other books. david maraniss, you mentioned you were and el dorado on easter. well, booktv traveled with david

and linda maraniss on the kenyan portion of the trip we shot a lot of video. we've been trying to show you some of that tonight, but were unable to show you everything because there is so much. we wanted to let you know that online there are several lengthy interview since the ends you can watch at booktv.org if you would like to see some more of david's work in kenya. go to booktv.org. there are four or five videos. they will not be shown tonight, the you can watch them online. one of the videos is an extended visit that you made to aunt alma, who is aunt alma? >> guest: and, with barack obama seniors sister. i'm glad you asked because i noticed him watching the earlier section where you interviewed in kenya, i mistakenly called her the sister of the president. there is another alma, but this is the sister of the president's

father. and, as the closest blood relative on that side of the family to the president. we found her. she so struggled by the side of the road near a little town of cheese and me and the province and she struggled with alcoholism herself, as did her brother, the president's father did she have stories to tell. >> host: in fact, we are showing video right now i view going into her home. a little high. there is a picture of the president on her wall there. you can see that. there she is. there is aunt alma. now, david maraniss after this visit we went and saw where she sold the charcoal, et cetera. after this visit, you asked your companions very question in the car as we were leaving. we want to show that little bit

of video to her viewers right now and get a response. >> the president does all of this? >> i think so, yeah. >> this will get to him. >> a little of the online video. you asked the kenyan journalist at the president knew about her. >> yes. i think there's a lot of the kenyan side of destroyed the the president probably doesn't know, as a lot of the kenya side of history probably wouldn't know. but i think that's not unusual. i think it's a biographer went into any of our lives and study grandparents and grandparents they would find many a week didn't know either. but in this particular case, because the president was so

much about, his mama sir, stepgrandmother. >> host: next call comes from austin, texas. go ahead with your question. >> caller: call code yet, i was just wondering, did david think it was an accident is father chose to give it a basketball as a president or did he notice that possibly help him figure out who he was? >> guest: that's a great question. i don't know the answer. i would like to think that you're right that he gave it to him to help him find himself. ..

>> guest: he got there when he was six and left before he turned ten and it's crucial. i think that global obasanjo eddy that barack obama has for any of us are very informative and i think for him it scared him, it strengthened him, it taught him it opened his eyes to the world a far beyond what most

this is an e-mail from philip herald. do you agree with steve sailors idea that anne dunham praised barack obama, senior to her son as a way of undermining and sniping at lolo? >> guest: anne was not that type. she spoke highly of lolo, too. as much of a drinker and abusive person has barack, senior but it turns out in our reporting she spoke highly of all of them because she did not want to disillusion her son and i don't think it had anything to do with going after lolo. i think it had to do with building up her son's self-esteem because he didn't know his father and because his father was black and very important in her mind to build him up that way.

>> host: vernon and new windsor new york. you are on book tv with david maraniss. >> guest: >> caller: may i welcome you both a happy father's day. my question is a two-part question and has to do with your research regarding the president's birth. apparently according to what i've heard today, they're seems to be a great deal of documentation from the ims about his father's whereabouts and of course that speaks to the question if you your research bares scrutiny it leaves little doubt about the president's whereabouts were he was born and the second question speaks to the president's academic record coming from occidental going to columbia and on to harvard. there would seem to be a record about outstanding academic achievements culminating in his being elected by his peers to the law review being the first african american.

i would like if he could speak to those things that uncover a little bit more information to put both of those things to rest it seems to do much to do about nothing. >> guest: i appreciate your question. i don't think it will ever be put to rest because unfortunately a lot of people are not interested in facts and history and looking at the fact surrounding barack obama's birth. there's a preponderance of evidence in that direction leaving no evidence of the other direction except for people claiming the birth certificate as a finding. but when you look at the records in the newspapers announcing the birth and the ims documents, tracking barack obama senior in the days before and after his birth when you look at the birth certificate itself and the fact the the republican governor of hawaii is authenticated it, and

when you interview people that are there in that period, which i've also done for my book, including the doctor that said if stanley had a baby, that was in the announcement right after the birth. it wouldn't go beyond that there are people that just want to believe something else. as to his academic record, i do not have his grades. i have interviewed many of his professors, several professors come and his grade point average at occidental was 3.7. in colombia it was good enough to get into harvard law school and then elected president of the review. somebody like donald trump walking around claiming there are questions about how smart barack obama is is just not even worth talking about. it's just people want to say

things and have no grounding in fact. >> host: charles from minneapolis e-mails you, david maraniss how did obama pay his tuition, what portion was scholarships and what percentage was paid by others or himself? >> guest: it is a combination of scholarships. much of it was paid for by his grandmother. she rose to become a vice president of the bank of hawaii and she truly devoted herself to her grandson, including a lot of money for his college education. so part of it was scholarship, a lot of it was from his grandmother. a small portion of it was from his mother. not because she didn't want to help more, but because she was not making that much money as in her job in indonesia in that period. and another portion came from obama himself working jobs during the summer. >> host: again after he left indonesia, he lived with his

grandparents didn't he? >> guest: he lived with his grandparents most of the program 1971 to 1979. there was a period his mother moved back from indonesia with his sister, a very young girl there and the three of them, the mother and maya lived on a street a couple blocks from the school and then she -- this is when she was in graduate school she went back indonesia and lived with his grandparents again for all of the senior high school years. >> host: the next call for david maraniss barack obama the story, hello, martin. >> caller: i'm enjoying the program immensely. thank you for it. i look forward to reading the book. my question is a close friend of mine, we graduated together from augusta kansas in 1955. i wont give his name you

probably know it and if not i can. i wondered if you have interviewed him in preparation for your book. i lost contact with him but he was a dear friend of. >> guest: what is his first name? >> caller: his first name is john but he went by jack and the lastname started with a p. >> guest: i can't say -- i interviewed many people from augusta. for those that don't know madeleine was her maiden name, grew up and went to school, and that's where she met stanley. but came down to augusta and did work as a construction worker and that's where they met. she was a senior in high school when they met which is fascinating because there is a series of early marriages that continued through her daughter

stanley ann who married barack obama, senior just turning 18. so, the young marriages. augusta kansas like eldorado is what was the heart of the wheel country in kansas in the early part of the century. really boomtown for a long period of time, but that was a long time ago. >> host: augusta, eldorado, kenya, hawaii, indonesia. are there monuments to president obama now that there are more cars and houses? >> guest: some, not many. not in honolulu. the markers are all just -- know, they are not. people can tell you different places of life but there are

markers for them. you go to the beach where you would body surf in the rock formation which his mother loved and they taught after she died to the japanese garden in the back of the east west which is another school to the pumping station which was a nickname where his buddies with smoke dope. there is no monument for any of that. i'm trying to remember. i know i didn't see any monuments there but there's a very good historical society in eldorado with a pretty good record of the lives of both ann dunham and madeline dunham. >> host: we saw where his great grandmother committed

suicide in the auto body shop. was there a marker there? or the owners aware of it? >> guest: no. my wife and i went to topeka and, you know, really one of those moments of gold when you find some great police reporter in 1926 wrote a detailed account of the suicide, which was the first step for me to get all the details of it. and it listed where the body shop was and then i used other contemporary documents to find their address and the consensus and so on all within a few blocks radius. when we drove up it just sort of is coincidental that it's still a body shot but a very different one and it's in a way that it doesn't look anything the way it did then. we went in and talked to the manager of the plays and he told us an interesting story that he didn't know this is where his great grandmother committed

suicide. was there is another video service where you get 15 seconds to ask a question or to create a video. we sent out earlier to the viewers and here is another tout for david maraniss. >> david, i know you've written a biography. i'm curious how you go about beginning research on a project like that. >> guest: my motto was to go there, wherever it is. so started out in arkansas. i will never forget the little town which is the only place to stay was bill clinton's great speed to and about half the people said they are related to bill clinton. but she had some letters that

were cut and she took them home because she felt sorry for me even though i have allergies and she said she had a magic potion that would fix them and of course it made me sicker but she told me about the box in the attic from clinton. >> host: so completely random. >> guest: completely random. if you don't go they don't happen and that's why i go. so for this story obviously i had to go around the world but even before i go places i do love lot of studying. so why spend four days at syracuse university which just happened to have the entire national archive on file because it was in the african studies program and a professor there had gone to kenya right after it got its independence and helped them and as of result to bring back for the copy of the entire

archive. sallai study a lot before i go anywhere but going is the second step. >> host: dena from berkeley e-mails to you is your book include a diagram of the obama family tree, which is very confusing. [laughter] >> guest: it should. maybe the next edition will. it's one of those things that swept by but i deal with it and i think an understandable way but there isn't a family tree in the book. >> host: next call we had about 20 minutes left in the program. arkansas. diane, you're on the air. >> caller: hi. i would like for you to talk a lot more about how -- i have another question after this, too -- about how a guy could go to high school and be drinking and

doing drugs, not studying. i mean, he had met him that he didn't. and how you couldn't get in colombia. i'm really curious about that. and did you -- you can be coated everything. was their anything negative and his life? if this was a republican i'm sure you wouldn't be sitting there grinning through all this. and i've never heard his middle name. he went over to egypt and made his speeches. so this is barack hussein obama and they all clapped. how does he get by with all of this? can you tell me? >> in answer to the first question on the one hand you point out the took drugs and drink and high school and then you say i'm candy coating. if you read the book he would see the story of the blemishes.

as to barack hussein obama i don't think he's ever backed away from his name. when you have that name it's hard to run from it. >> host: you talk about in the book hussain to his name, correct? did i get that right? >> guest: his grandfather converted to islam. the other aspect that is built up around obama has to do with him as a closet muslim. the truth is that every -- from the rise of the obama in kenya conservative evangelical christian missionaries were responsible for it every step of the way. they are the ones who taught western ways and english, the grandfather. it is a christian missionary that he came to know nairobi in

the late 1950's and took part dhaka, senior a underwing. she was teaching literacy and spreading the gospel at the same time. she's the one that recommended him to come to study. and not this would have happened with christian missionaries. most of them had nothing to do with it. >> host: next call will of lentils california. hi, mark. >> caller: good evening, folks. appreciate the interview. it's going great. i would like to explore more of his time as a constitutional professor and what that actually was with a full term professorship visiting. and he should be uniquely qualified as a president to answer the question of the 14th amendment and whether it was actually grandfathered out when the last person born into enslavement died because the way most people read, that would be the case. can you comment? >> guest: that's a great question and most would be dealt

with in the next volume. this book is before it became a professor. i did interviews in chicago, many interviews related to it. he was never a full-time professor. he did teach the constitutional law for several years while he was writing his book and then while he was a state senator spending half his time at least in springfield as a state senator. so he never taught full-time. the dean of law school hired him and said he was one of the most -- the best classroom teachers that he had and he was a natural and really tried to stop him from going into politics that he was better as a professor. president obama told me during the interview that the expectations of his family, of his mother and his grandmother was that he would be the clerk to a supreme court justice or the law professor himself but even though he enjoyed teaching

law it was never really what he wanted to do and i'm not sure that is what he will go back to after his presidency either. i could try to answer the 14th amendment question that you would just -- i won't do that. >> host: after his presidency, whether it ends in 2010 or 2016 would you expect him to go back to or what do you think he may go back to? >> guest: i think he will definitely write another book. i think that he could teach him he might. it depends on who is president and with the situation is. how many presidents there are at that point. how much difference between he and president clinton and jimmy carter. all of those things would be factors in terms of how he deals around the world.

but i don't -- i don't think he will run again some other time if he gets elected in the two terms i think that he will spend his career writing. >> host: did you talk to anyone in your research that said i knew he was going to go into politics. he talked about running for office. >> guest: very little. such a remarkable contrast with bill clinton who virtually everyone talked to from the time they were in fourth grade telling the stories about that including his mother who expected all along. when he was in high school he ran for office so much as principled they told him he couldn't run anymore. in college he ran. they were sick of him and defeated him when he ran for class president. with barack you see none of that. he never ran for anything although there was one election

where people wrote along with mickey mouse and others. you don't kill the first instance i saw was when he was in new york city he was talking to one of his friends who we talked about earlier and he asked him the question do you think i could never be president of the united states and what he meant was do you think a black man could be president of the united states but it's the sign of ambition. >> host: ten minutes left on the program with david maraniss. next call arkansas. moty, did i get that right? >> caller: i'm a great c-span fan. thank you. i want to ask about when he left chicago i believe and whether or not david believes he was initially an office and received so much push back from both the democratic and republican party

and whether they were during the period may have missed out on the lessons he might have learned with respect to how they are beating now and then i have a second part of the question because i'm actually writing a book from a community perspective because i was a community organizer for 22 years on the south side and i want more people especially young people to know more about him from that perspective and whether or not he thinks that can be a useful avenue writing a successful book about the president. >> guest: thank you for those questions. in terms of washington, washington is one of the magnets that drew barack obama to chicago. when he was elected he was in new york and he immediately applied for jobs to work in the washington administration in chicago. he didn't get hired because nobody knew him. was just another name. but the fact that chicago had a

black mayor. and i'm confused by the question because he didn't leave chicago during that period. he was in chicago from 1985, when he got there, until washington played in 87. he was there the entire period. he interacted with the may hear a few times. one time in particular she came down to roseland. i'm sure you are familiar with that community. you may even be from there. he opened up the job training program and obama as a community organizer helped people do that and then was sort of tutoring them on how to come from them when he got there. we have to talk to the mayor about this and help open other ways in president obama described to me how when he came

that day all of his organizers just sort of folded and they were in awe of the mayor but they didn't ask any questions or consultation and as a lesson to obama in the charismatic political power in terms of organizing i think that it was a crucial part of obama's development. he wasn't a classic organizer in the sense that he was reluctant to confront. he wasn't strong on action or confrontational action. one of his mentors said that he was to read it and then make the key decision that was one of the most cautious people he met and most organizers are just the opposite. they are always pushing and than worrying about the consequences. i think he meant the action is the most important thing at that

moment. there are certain parts of it particularly interviewing people and figuring out what their needs were and trying to find a commonality in different groups of people >> host: the next call is from chicago. please go ahead with your question for david maraniss. >> caller: i have two questions. one is when you interview president obama for your book, did you discuss the alcoholism in your family? for example, i wonder if he expressed any fear aside from the teenage party unity expressed any fear that he too might become an alcoholic. my second question is what was his relationship with his stepfather in indonesia? was close to them? >> guest: we discussed part of it in terms of dhaka holism and

we discussed the alcoholism on both sides of the family. we discussed a little bit about the addictive personalities come and i've done some reporting on that in terms of the president himself. his addiction essentially was tobacco. quitting smoking he claims to have done it in the white house. i shouldn't say claims, by all accounts he's quit while he's president but that is the addiction that he took. he's not a steamiest. he will have a beer or glass of wine. it doesn't show signs of alcoholism himself. it's on both sides of the family. it's a genetic. so it could be a problem on the line for future generations to read as to his relationship with lolo soetoro, it wasn't father-son.

lolo did treat him fine. there is no abuse from the stepfather. the relationship was even more uneven. we found there's more trouble there than you would think. so it was more like an older man that was sort of trying to teach him the ropes of how to survive in the world but nothing beyond that, not a father-son relationship. it's very interesting that when you study barack obama's entire life, you see very few if any role models and mentors. >> host: last call for david maraniss comes from florida. karen, you are on the air. >> caller: we were told that barack obama was a student of history. when we study fdr, we find that he began his presidency

believing that he would be able to deal with the republicans who get the new deal accomplished and so forth and he hit a brick wall, and even the so-called reasonable republicans wouldn't work with fdr. did he not learn this lesson from history? >> guest: clearly he did not. another aspect of history is that people tend to repeat the same mistakes. but i didn't talk to him but this aspect of its. president obama's life was all shaped on that and that 2003 speech where he could move beyond partisanship. and perhaps he was not a proceeding ashura padilla logical the fight of the political culture and how difficult it would be for him to try to transcend them.

>> host: david maraniss when can we expect to see volume to? >> guest: a reasonable amount of time. >> host: barack obama the story is available in bookstores on tuesday. this is book tv's exclusive look at barack obama the story with the author david maraniss. booktv travel on the kenya portion of the book. if you want to see more of that, unfortunately we were not able to show you a lot of it tonight, but there is extensive video online on booktv. you'll see it on the featured video you can go and watch it. this program will be there at 1 a.m. eastern time. thanks for being with us here on book tv maraniss come thanks