To commemorate the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States, Penguin presents a keepsake edition of his 2009 inaugural address together with writings by two great American thinkers and writers whose words have influenced and inspired Obama politically, philosophically, and personally: Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Barack Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009, in the bicentennial year of Lincoln’s birth, under the theme “A New Birth of Freedom,” a phrase drawn directly from the Gettysburg Address. With Lincoln’s wartime address and his first and second inaugural speeches we reflect on the nation’s history and progress from Lincoln’s political commitment to equality to Obama’s promise of change. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” a cornerstone of American philosophy, and one of Obama’s favorite works, calls for our trust in individual integrity, rather than in materialism and conformity. Together these writings embody the American values and ideals that Barack Obama reminded us on election night we all share: “self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity.”
For each generation, there are historic moments and hopeful words that carry us forward in celebration or through crisis. In the tradition of the history of Penguin Classics, we publish this book in honor of our enduring legacy of language, whose capacity to inspire, strengthen, and unite us is eternal.