'A Promised Land' By Barack Obama Crown Publishing, New York, 768 pages, $45 

In his famous 1966 speech in South Africa, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy stated that "only those who dare to fail greatly, will ever achieve greatly." This is a dominant theme in President Barack Obama's newest memoir, A Promised Land, which principally focuses on his improbable 2008 rise to the presidency and first 30 months in the White House. In recounting that period, Obama explains how he brought his "new kind of politics" to the national stage and matriculated from a "state of becoming" into a man who achieved a "state of being."

As noted by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their recent biography of James A. Baker III, the memoirs of national politicians often glorify their own successes, avoid any hints of failure, and skirt the truth. Obama's new book does not fit that mold. It refreshingly admits both missteps and failures. Self-reflective, Obama has observed that life takes its own turns, makes its own demands, writes down its own story, and along the way, we start to realize we are not the author.