The Apple Fell Far from the Tree

Kwame Anthony Appiah

The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family
by Peter Firstbrook

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INS News Agency Ltd./Rex USA

Barack Obama with his stepgrandmother, Sarah, half-sister, Auma, and stepmother, Kezia, at their homestead in Alego, Kenya

Families, it sometimes seems, are just a vast web of potential embarrassmentsinterspersed, no doubt, with the occasional opportunity for pride. Honor and shame, as much as love or liking, are what bind us to our kith and kin. The teenager rolls her eyes as her mother gets up to dance at the wedding; grandparents flush when their friends ask about the grandson who just came out in Sunday school; a wife looks down disconsolately as her intoxicated husband rises to make the after-dinner speech. We can all evoke such moments.


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