Brooklyn Heights

‘The Global Obama’ examines President’s popularity

Brooklyn BookBeat: Author To Speak in Brooklyn Heights

March 25, 2014 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Screen Shot 2014-03-25 at 5.07.42 PM.png
Share this:

Binghamton University professor and journalist Dinesh Sharma has been chronicling and analyzing the Obama presidency for several years. His previous book, “Barack Obama in Hawaii and Indonesia: The Making of a Global President,” in collaboration with President Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, was rated one of the Top Ten Black History Books for 2012 by the American Library Association, Book List Online. 

In his new book, “The Global Obama: Crossroads of Leadership in the 21st Century” (Routledge, 2014), Sharma focuses on Obama’s attempts to provide global leadership and how he is perceived and judged by the general public around the world. Sharma has gathered a talented team of contributors, covering five continents and more than twenty countries, to assess Obama as a global leader in the context of his policies toward their country or region in which they reside. 

Subscribe to our newsletters

The author will appear in Brooklyn Heights to discuss his book on April 4 at St. Francis College, along with his colleagues Uwe Gielen, Arturo Munoz, Ali Mazrui and Don Morrison.

Despite his suboptimal ratings at home, Obama remains popular abroad.  Whether it is Ukraine’s current battle with Russia to remain sovereign, the challenges of building democracies in the Middle East and Africa, or the pivot towards Asia arousing fears among the Chinese, global leaders and citizens turn to the United States under President Obama for leadership and guidance.

As a progress report, this is the first book that tries to grasp ‘the Obama phenomenon’ in totality, as perceived by populations around the world, with a special focus on America’s leadership in the 21st century.

“While Obama remains more popular in many parts of the world than at home, there is a growing perception that his pursuit of progressive goals is undermined by his realpolitik (politics or diplomacy based primarily on power as well as practical and material factors and considerations), which tends to sacrifice these goals at the altar of perceived American security, political and economic interests, especially in Muslim-majority nations in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia,” state Sharma and Gielen. 

* * *

The April 4 event will begin at 3 p.m. St. Francis College is located at 180 Remsen St. in Brooklyn Heights.

* * *

Dinesh Sharma is an associate research professor at Binghamton University’s Institute for Global Cultural Studies; a senior fellow at the Institute for International and Cross-Cultural Research, NYC; and a columnist for Asia Times Online, Al Jazeera English and The Global Intelligence, among other syndicated publications. His recent articles and opinions have also appeared in Wall Street Journal Online, Free Lance-Star, Far Eastern Economic Review, Middle East Times, Middle East Online, Epoch Times, Biotech Law Review, Health Affairs, International Psychology Bulletin and other scientific journals.


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment