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Former President Barack Obama reads from the first volume of his presidential memoirs offering a unique and deeply personal account of life in high office and some of the landmarks of his first term. Today the newly inaugurated President settles into his first 100 days in office and must confront the economic crisis that he has inherited from the Bush administration. It’s a brutal start and he contemplates what he can do to halt the economy’s collapse. Trying to get the biggest emergency spending bill in history through Congress is, as he himself says, ‘like trying to get a python to swallow a cow.’ He also appears for the first time at the G20 summit and observes the different characteristics of the European leaders with wry humour before he and Michelle are invited to meet the Queen.

Elected in 2008, Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States and the first African American to sit in the Oval Office. A Promised Land offers a unique and deeply personal account of presidential life and its highs and lows, and threaded through it all there are tantalising glimpses of family life with Michelle, Malia and Sasha at one of the world's most famous addresses.

Abridged by Katrin Williams.
Produced by Julian Wilkinson; the editor is Di Speirs.