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  • Published: 21 December 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241561249
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $75.00

Renegades

Born in the USA




Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material.

Renegades: Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, and entertaining dialogue between President Barack Obama and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen that explores everything from their origin stories and career-defining moments to the growing distance between the American Dream and the American reality. Filled with full-colour photographs and rare archival material, it is a compelling and beautifully illustrated portrait of two outsiders-one Black and one white-looking for a way to connect their unconventional searches for meaning, identity, and community with the American story itself.

It includes:
· Original introductions by President Obama and Bruce Springsteen
· Exclusive new material from the Renegades podcast recording sessions
· Obama's never-before-seen annotated speeches
· Springsteen's handwritten lyrics for songs spanning his 50-year-long career
· Rare and exclusive photographs from the authors' personal archives

  • Published: 21 December 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241561249
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $75.00

About the authors

Barack Obama

Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States, elected in November 2008 and holding office for two terms. He is the author of two previous New York Times bestselling books, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, and the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Michelle. They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is the recipient of twenty Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and a Kennedy Center Honor. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Born to Run, and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. He lives in New Jersey with his family.

Praise for Renegades

There is a lot to be enjoyed as they dig into a subject that has underpinned their very different careers: the gap between the glowing aspiration and cracked reality of the so-called American Dream . . . there is some serious political and philosophical content here. Springsteen and Obama are articulate and idealistic orators, and the conversation relentlessly pushes towards the shared goal of reclaiming a liberal, progressive vision of America in post-Trumpian times

Daily Telegraph

This new book of conversations, photos and speeches is a beautifully presented, coffee table-friendly smorgasbord of uplift . . . Annotated versions of Obama speeches on their original notepaper, most movingly his passionate and compassionate eulogy for civil rights activist John Lewis ("like John, we have to keep getting into good trouble"), feel like a window on to history, as, to a lesser extent, do rather more pristine, handwritten Springsteen lyrics

iNews

One may be a songwriter and the other a politician but Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama are both gifted storytellers who have crafted a story about themselves and their nation . . . Renegades reminds us that despite the hardness of the world and the challenges that demand to be faced there still exists the promise of better days

Sarfraz Manzoor

In this beautifully curated coffee-table book, which bulks up the extended podcast transcripts with photographs, annotated speeches and handwritten song lyrics to lend a degree of polished intimacy, these American heavyweights find the silver linings adorning even the darkest of clouds

The Times

Renegades: Born in the USA is human, vulnerable, smart, and passionate . . . Obama and Springsteen admire their country while considering its shortcomings and still come out the other side with a sense of patriotism and hope that spills over the bounds of a book

Associated Press

A collection of intimate and thoughtful conversations between the President and the Boss

Los Angeles Times

Do you dream of scoring an invitation to Springsteen's Colts Neck compound? Maybe strumming on those guitars, riding horses, riffing on the American experiment in the recording studio? Unless you're an American president, you're going to have to get in line. But in between daydreams, pick up Renegades. It's the closest thing to being a fly on the wall of an incredible friendship

Esquire