在一个更完美的世界里，所有竞选总统的人都应该具备完成了博士论文的博士研究生学历。在特定意义上，《希望无畏》这本书就像是参议院巴拉克奥巴马提交的一份毕业论文。这本书除了以轶闻姓氏展示了奥巴马的领导气质、人生经历和个人品质意外，还展示了他任伊利诺伊州参议员期间对于国内的一些重大事件、热点问题相当广泛且有深度的回应，以及他对于中东、前苏联等国家和地区的冲突矛盾的接触。
这本书就像一幅非常吸引人的自画像。描绘了一位年轻而又不乏成熟的男人，一位关注人类生存环境目光犀利的观察家，一位能书写出庄严气息的文章、拥有坚定意志的人物。通过这本书，奥巴马也证明了自己拥有异乎常人的幽默，因为他那曲折的人生经历确实让他够格异于常人。
在这个全球化的时代，奥巴马称得上是一个全球人（global man），而他的故事也已经为人熟知。母亲是堪萨斯州人，父亲是肯尼亚人，继父是印度尼西亚人，在夏威夷和印尼这两个完全不同的地方长大，这一切让他走进美国参议院之门那一刻变得非常特殊，这一切也为他提供了一个独特视角去看待美国政治的荣誉与荒唐。
奥巴马善于消解敌意，他承认他的抱负，承认有“长期不安”的情绪，承认羡慕那些年轻成功的政治家。在参与参议院这场危险的“赌博”前，他就对选择这份职业报过怀疑态度，在书中暗示，他已经至少走过一些“专家指定的阶段”：“否认，愤怒…绝望。” 尤其是在一种托尔斯泰主义氛围下，他承认“接受”“我的死亡”。他倾听无数人的故事，得出了一个罗斯福式的领悟：“政府应该给与帮助。”他哀悼共享的公共语言的丧失，哀悼神话般的美国生活与现实中的美国生活之间差距越来越大。他还明确拒绝为一项行动给出一项十点计划宣言。谨以此书献给“一种新的政治”和“公民生活”的发现，献给“共同利益的概念”。
奥巴马写下这些话的时候，展现了他最优秀的一面：“当我发现我从政越久,虚名对我越不重要的时候，心情豁然开朗。因为越是追逐权力、地位和名誉，好像越是显得缺乏真正的抱负。所以，我只坚持对我的良心负责。”
原文有删减
译文
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/books/review/Hart.t.html?pagewanted=2
译文:
American Idol—The Presidential Candidate Obama’s ‘Hope is Fearless’
Writer, Gary Hart
In a more perfect world, all people running for presidency are supposed to be equipped with the Doctor’s Degree of finishing the doctoral dissertation. In a certain sense, the book ‘Hope is Fearless’ is just like a graduate thesis submitted by Obama in Senate. In addition to showing the leading temperament, personal experience, and individual characteristics of Obama in this book; it also reveals his insightful reaction to some domestic events and hotspots issues when he served as the Senator of Illinois as well as his contact to the conflicts in the countries and regions of Middle East and The former Soviet Union.
The book seems to be a quite attractive portray describing a man who is young but mature, an observer who has attached great importance to human’s living environment, a figure who possess a strong will and can write solemn essays. In this book, Obama also shows his extraordinary humor which all dues to his unusually winding life experience.
In an age of globalization, Obama is entitled to a global man while his stories are already household ones. His mother is from Kansas while his father Kenya and his stepfather is an Indonesian; he grew up in two quite different places like Hawaii and Indonesia—all these have made him special the moment he stepped into the Senate and also thanks to these, he was offered an unique perspective to read the honors as well as absurdities of American politics.
Obama is good at eliminating hostility. He admits his ambition, his ‘long-term upset’ emotion and his admiration of those young successful politicians. Before participating in the dangerous Senate ‘gamble’, he was skeptical to profession he had chosen. He implies in the book that he has at least passed by some ‘periods appointed by the exports’: ‘denial, irritation…and desperation.’ Especially in an atmosphere of Tolstoyism, he admits the ‘acceptance of ’’my death’. He has listened to numerous stories from which he comes to a conclusion of Roosevet style:’ Government should offer help.’ He mourns the vanishment of shared public language and the increasing gap between the mythological American life and the realistic one. He also clearly refused to give a Ten-Point-Plan-Manifesto to an action. The book is only dedicated to the discovery of ‘a new politics and ’and ‘citizen life’ as well as ‘concept of ‘common interest’.
Obama has displayed his most excellent side when he wrote those remarks, ‘The gate of my heart are flung open when I find that the longer I am in politics, the less important reclame is to me .’ Because it seems that the more you are eager for power, position, and fame, the less you are with real ambition. Therefore, I only stick to be responsible for my consciousness.