How Hunter Biden's Memoir Played in the White House — Hunter Biden was careering above Highway 10 in the Sonoran desert.Eastbound behind the wheel of a rented Lincoln Town Car, exhausted and speeding 80 mph, he'd closed his eyes just long enough to zag off the road and into the air, twirling to land in the opposite lanes. Samantha Power's memoir sheds light on foreign policy in the Obama years (Flickr/Obama White House/Pete Souza) These are crestfallen times for Samantha Power, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a onetime war zone reporter in Bosnia, Croatia, Iraq and other scenes of misery, a Harvard University law professor and a survivor of.
Description
Memoir Of An Idealist
A NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER
An intimate, powerful, and galvanizing memoir by Pulitzer Prize winner, human rights advocate, and former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. Named one of the best books of the year:
The New York Times - National Public Radio - Time - The Economist - The Washington Post - Vanity Fair - Christian Science Monitor - Publishers Weekly - Audible
'Her highly personal and reflective memoir . . . is a must-read for anyone who cares about our role in a changing world.'--President Barack Obama
Includes an updated afterword
Tracing her distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential Cabinet official, Samantha Power's acclaimed memoir is a unique blend of suspenseful storytelling, vivid character portraits, and shrewd political insight. After her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of Senator Barack Obama, he invited her to work with him on Capitol Hill and then on his presidential campaign. When Obama won the presidency, Power went from being an activist outsider to serving as his human rights adviser and, in 2013, becoming the youngest-ever US Ambassador to the United Nations. Power transports us from her childhood in Dublin to the streets of war-torn Bosnia to the White House Situation Room and the world of high-stakes diplomacy, offering a compelling and deeply honest look at navigating the halls of power while trying to put one's ideals into practice. Along the way, she lays bare the searing battles and defining moments of her life, shows how she juggled the demands of a 24/7 national security job with raising two young children, and makes the case for how we each can advance the cause of human dignity. This is an unforgettable account of the power of idealism--and of one person's fierce determination to make a difference.
'This is a wonderful book. ...] The interweaving of Power's personal story, family story, diplomatic history and moral arguments is executed seamlessly and with unblinking honesty.'--THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, The New York Times Book Review
'Truly engrossing...A pleasure to read.'--RACHEL MADDOW
'A beautiful memoir about the times we're living in and the questions we must ask ourselves...I honestly couldn't put it down.' --CHERYL STRAYED, author of Wild
'Power's compelling memoir provides critically important insights we should all understand as we face some of the most vexing issues of our time.' --BRYAN STEVENSON, author of Just Mercy
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Reviews
'Samantha Power's memoir gives a candid, self-questioning, intensely personal view of what goes on inside. It should inspire others to test their ideals against the unforgiving world.'--GEORGE PACKER, author of The Unwinding and Our Man
'A celebrated writer and an accomplished diplomat, Samantha Power is one of the most outspoken and important voices in world affairs today. Her absorbing, heartfelt, and remarkably candid memoir provides vivid new details about the difficult strategic questions that arose during her years in the Obama administration, and offers essential lessons to anyone aspiring to follow in her footsteps in shaping the world for the better.'--Secretary of State MADELEINE ALBRIGHT
'Samantha Power's book is honest, personal, revealing. It is about the development of a young woman's inner strength and self-knowledge. But it is also a political book, alert to both the power of political will and its limitations. It is the journey of an idealist, whose conscience was forged in Bosnia, into the corridors of power where compromise does battle with commitment. It is the story of someone with the soul of an outsider becoming, as an insider, a passionate witness to events in the White House and the United Nations during the Obama years.'--COLM TÓIBÍN, author of Brooklyn and Nora Webster
'In this gripping and revelatory memoir, Power chronicles, with vibrant precision and stunning candor, her best and worst moments navigating the obstacle courses within the White House and the UN, daunting global crises, and personal struggles. She is utterly compelling in her eye-witness accounts of violence and political standoffs and shrewdly witty in her tales about balancing diplomacy and motherhood.'--Booklist, starred review
'[Power] stresses the necessity of caring, acting, and not giving up when seeking to change people's lives. Power's vibrant prose, exuberant storytelling, and deep insights into human nature make for a page-turning memoir.'--Publishers Weekly, starred review
'Lively...and strikingly personal...[Power] writes vividly and lucidly here about her turn in the international spotlight.'--Vogue
'Amid the flood of memoirs from Obama administration veterans, Power's stands out as worth reading. For starters, she's a better writer than a lot of them--she was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author long before she got into government. She's also done more that's worth reading about. Like the best journalists, Power has a gift for finding the perfect anecdote to illustrate a larger idea or theme, and this is the rare political memoir where you definitely shouldn't skim the 'early years' chapters.--Slate
'Engaging....Power's memoir is an insider's account of foreign-policy-making, and an intensely personal one.'--The Economist
'Power is a master story-teller . . . a brilliant self-portrait of an outsider turned insider, who is forced to grapple with the challenges that brings, and does so honestly.'--The Independent (Ireland)
'A uniquely personal and absorbing account of [Power's] time at the heart of US foreign policy . . . Power's book gives a riveting fly-on-the wall insight into the Obama administration's foreign-policy decision-making and the inner workings of the United Nations.'--The Irish Times
“This is a wonderful book....The interweaving of Power's personal story, family story, diplomatic history and moral arguments is executed seamlessly--and with unblinking honesty.”
--THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, The New York Times Book Review
“[Power] is a very good writer, which makes it more fun and truly engrossing to read a memoir about a former U.S. official....A pleasure to read.”--RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC
“Power writes movingly about everything...and she delivers one of the best-written political memoirs of recent years.”--FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN
'Refreshingly frank and self-deprecating, Power's memoir is an energizing reminder that conscience has a place in the process of shaping foreign policy.'--TIME
'A foreign policy guru reveals her many selves in a sweeping autobiography'--O Magazine
'Power writes with heart about her upbringing -- in Ireland, Pittsburgh and Atlanta -- and she is especially poignant when recounting a few traumatic episodes... Still, the book is suffused with humor, and [President Obama] furnishes the funniest anecdotes that don't come from her charming children...The Education of an Idealist is a moving account of how to serve righteously, or at least how to try.'--The Washington Post
'An illuminating and engaging account of [Power's] journey from would-be sports journalist to award winning author, from Irish immigrant to presidential cabinet member... This engrossing memoir will appeal to informed readers and will inspire women contemplating careers in public service.'--Library Journal
'Samantha Power's captivating memoir is a rare and intimate revelation of the inner workings of international diplomacy as well as a heartening beacon of a book for young women and men everywhere. Its stories of dignity, kindness, empathy, and inclusiveness are needed today as never before.'--DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Conversation Starters from ReadingGroupChoices.com
Read MoreBefore serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power served on President Obama’s National Security Council, where she was instrumental in advocating for intervening militarily in the Libyan civil war. While serving as UN Ambassador during Obama’s second term, she continued to advocate for military interventions, this time in the Syrian war. In both cases, she framed her case for intervention as a moral one — a “humanitarian intervention” necessary for saving Libyans and Syrians from their dictators.
These interventions, however, were anything but humanitarian: They led to a sharp increase in the loss of human lives, exacerbated a refugee crisis, enabled extremist groups, and caused an overall exacerbation of already-tenuous civil conflicts. Yet, in her recently-published memoir, The Education of an Idealist, Power downplays her role in the bloodshed that followed in Libya, and she goes as far as lamenting Obama’s inaction earlier in the Syrian Civil War. Though these interventions are certainly career-defining, they are also not the only foreign policy injustices by which Power should be remembered.
The most striking thing about Power’s memoir is her complete omission of her role in what became the world’s worst humanitarian crisis: the ongoing U.S. intervention in Yemen.
In 2011, two years before Power’s tenure as Ambassador to the UN began, Yemenis protested against long-time dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh who eventually resigned and transferred power to his then-vice president (and now president) Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. By the time Power took office in August 2013, U.S. policy in Yemen was defined by drone warfare, while Yemenis awaited an election following Hadi’s two-year term. Then in late 2014, the Houthi rebel group marched to the capital Sana’a, in what many saw as a coup, thereby threatening Saudi Arabia’s interests in Yemen. Months later, a coalition consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other neighboring countries launched a surprise attack on Yemen, ostensibly aimed at restoring Hadi to power.
Ambassador Power supported this intervention.
Her support did not waver when evidence surfaced that the Saudis and Emiratis were fighting alongside members of al-Qaeda. By the end of her tenure, at least 10,000 Yemenis were dead and at least 80% of the population was in need of humanitarian aid. Despite this, there were no public statements made by Power at the time indicating waning support for the disastrous U.S. intervention in Yemen.
Samantha Power Memoir
In June 2016, Ambassador Power was asked to comment on then-UN Secretary-General’s Ban Ki-moon’s stunning admission that Saudi threats to UN funding led him to remove Saudi Arabia from a list of armies responsible for killing and wounding children (Saudi Arabia was initially on that list for its role in targeting Yemeni children). Power and her staff reportedly ignored a journalist’s questions about this. “Since news broke of Ban’s decision, I have asked Power’s office for a direct response to Saudi funding threats,” journalist Samuel Oakford wrote for Politico in July 2016. “Neither she nor her staff has ever replied.”
Years later, Power still prefers in her memoir to look away from Yemen rather than confront her role in enabling the Saudis to kill innocent Yemenis when she had the power to oppose such aggression.
Yemen is mentioned twice in her book, with neither reference having anything to do with the war in Yemen. Such a glaring omission can only be seen as a lack of reckoning and accountability for her actions as a representative of the United States at the UN at the onset of the war in Yemen. During her critical role at the UN, the Obama administration supported the Saudi and UAE coalition militarily through targeting assistance, intelligence, midair refueling, arms sales and training. Furthermore, Power helped provide cover for the Saudis and the Emiratis at the United Nations, allowing them to investigate their own crimes, and enabling them to carry out atrocities against civilians with impunity.
Her omission of Yemen is indeed surprising given her new-found criticism of the U.S. role in the war in Yemen. Months after leaving office, Ambassador Power began tweeting against the war in Yemen, even going as far as openly acknowledging that it was wrong for the Obama administration to support the Saudi-led coalition while it killed civilians and imposed a famine-inducing blockade on the country. Yet, when writing her own story, she chose to ignore Yemen altogether.
Despite this glaring omission, her memoir has received mostly positive reviews that fail to criticize her for helping turn Yemen into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. And while the press and Congress have become much more critical of the war in Yemen since Trump’s election, Obama and his officials remain relatively unscathed by criticism for their role in launching the U.S. intervention in the Yemen back in 2015. Had there been more outrage and calls for accountability at the onset of Obama’s unconstitutional intervention in Yemen, perhaps Trump would not have had a war to inherit. Perhaps nearly 100,000 Yemenis would not have been killed. And perhaps 85,000 Yemeni children would not have starved to death.
Samantha Power Written Works
In choosing to entirely ignore one of her most glaring failures — as a self-proclaimed activist and diplomat — Ambassador Power missed a crucial opportunity to set the record straight on her horrific actions and inactions as ambassador. In the eyes of this Yemeni-American, Ambassador Power remains neither educated nor an idealist.