Let's unpack Barack Obama. His new memoir, The Audacity of Hope, is organized by broad topics: "Values," "Politics," "Faith," "Family." Each is a chapter that contains a mix of personal stories, political ideas, statistics, analysis of this or that policy, examinations of this or that important moment in American history, and memories of this and that part of the world he grew up in or recently visited as a senator. What we see at the bottom of these packed events, experiences, and expositions is the light of Obama's reason, which is an American form of reason. The light does not begin with him, but beams backward to Bill Clinton, to John Lewis, to John F. Kennedy—all the way back to the very document that founded this country. It's a beam that survived the "sin of slavery," that directed America out of the great dark of the Great Depression, that shaped the civil-rights movement, and that reached the information revolution of the '90s before disappearing into the shadows, secrecies, and torture chambers of the post-9/11 underworld.

The beam of reason reemerged first with Howard Dean's rejection of the war and has since intensified with Al Gore's campaign on behalf of the climate and with Obama's affirmation of American intelligence and honesty. Unlike the present president, Obama is open about his mistakes; he is not perfect, he is not guided by God or angels, but by human thought and consideration. Everyone recognizes American reason in Obama. This is why he is loved. They see it in his gestures, in his face, in his getup. The light of American thought permeates the personal and political layers in The Audacity of Hope.

The book is smoothly written; its words, sentences, paragraphs are surfaces that present very few obstacles and little resistance to the reader. You start and in no time reach the end of a chapter. Matching this clarity of language is a clarity of content. It is easy to understand why he thinks this or that way, and how he comes to his conclusions. Easy as it may be to grasp, however, the book is not empty. Obama is smart, and has a gift for making difficult problems seem understandable and, therefore, resolvable.

This is one of the main reasons why Obama has been able to do what most (if not all other) black politicians have failed to do up to this point: win the support of a large number of middle-class white Americans. The problem was this: How can a black politician be authentically black, speak for black voters, raise the thorny issue of race, and, at the same time, convince white voters that he/she also has their interests in mind? Obama is managing not only to pull off this extraordinarily complex trick—the political equivalent of walking on water—but to do it with great ease. His book is filled with examples of how he works this trick.

There is another reason why this book is easy to read. Obama has had a very interesting life. Not only is his father Kenyan, but he also spent a part of his boyhood in Indonesia, at a crucial period of that country's history—just after the coup that deposed one of the leading figures of Third World nationalism, Sukarno, and placed General Suharto in power. "I remember those days of chasing down chickens," he writes, "and running from water buffalo, nights of shadow puppets and ghost stories and street vendors bringing delectable sweets to our door."

Obama's mother, a white woman from Kansas, was then married to an officer in General Sukarno's army, and the marriage gave him a half sister. "With a sister who's half Indonesian but who's usually mistaken for a Mexican or Puerto Rican," writes Obama in another part of the book, "and a brother-in-law and niece of Chinese descent, with some blood relatives who resemble Margaret Thatcher and others who could pass for Bernie Mac... family get-togethers over Christmas take on the appearance of a UN General Assembly meeting."

His family also resembles the way America will look "shortly after 2050." According to experts, around this time "America will no longer be a majority white country" but one that is "majority minority." This future composition is the present composition of the family of the man many believe has a decent chance of returning reason to the most powerful political position on earth.

charles@thestranger.com