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Conversations with tyler is produced by the mercatus center at george mason university, bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems. I'm here to day with samantha power, who was currently professor of practice at the harvard kennedy school and also the harvard school of law. She started her career as an npr wartime correspondent, including in the former yuguslavia. Her pular surprise winning book, a problem from hell, focus the attention of the world on the issue of gene side and revolutionized our thinking about foreign policy. And she is also the author of other books, but most notably, she has a memoir just out called

A former war correspondent and UN ambassador, Samantha Power has had her share of tough assignments. But writing a memoir about it all is also a daunting prospect. The format itself is a challenge: how do you convince the reader you’re worth spending time with? How do you paint a relatable portrait without oversharing and losing your dignity? For Samantha the answer was settling upon a purpose for her memoir and ruthlessly cutting out everything not in service of that.

Tyler and Samantha discuss that purpose and more, including what she learned as an Irish immigrant, the personality traits of good diplomats (and war correspondents), relations with China, why democracy is so rare in the Middle East, the truth about Richard Holbrooke, what factors mitigate against humanitarian intervention, her favorite memoir, how to get NATO members to spend more on defense, and whether baseball games are too long.

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Recorded July 30th, 2019 Other ways to connect

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