Samantha Power is the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and William D. Zabel ’61 Professor of Practice in Human Rights at Harvard Law School.From 2013 to 2017 Power served as the 28th U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, as well as a member of President Obama’s cabinet. Her new memoir is The Education of an Idealist.
At The Week magazine Power shared six of her favorite books, including:
Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (1947).Read about the other entries on the list.
Levi's searing account of the Nazis' "demolition of man" raises often unanswerable moral questions. I read this memoir in my early 20s, and it helped ignite an abiding interest in the causes and consequences of the Holocaust. Rereading the book recently, I was struck again by the depth of Levi's character and the enduring power of his understanding of human nature.
Survival in Auschwitz is among Michael Palin's six best books, Eve Claxton's top ten memoirs and autobiographies, and Gail Caldwell's five groundbreaking memoirs.
--Marshal Zeringue