The Obamas

Peter Firstbrook spent many months in Kenya researching the history of Barack Obama's family, tracing Obama's roots from the present back through more than 20 generations, thanks to the Luo tribe's remarkable oral tradition. Seen though the eyes of the Obama family this will be the story of an African dynasty going back over 400 years. It is a truly astonishing drama culminating in the inauguration of Barack Obama on 20 January, 2009. This book establishes the early ancestry of the Obama family in the Alego region, telling the story of farmers and fishermen, of love and tribal warfare, of families lost and found. It traces the Obama roots from famous tribal warriors in the seventeenth century to the first encounters with the white man in the early 1900s; generation by generation we follow the family through colonial rule and the fight for Kenyan independence, including the Mau Mau and the relationship of Barack Obama's father with President Kenyatta. This is a book about a family whose destiny is unknown to them.