Review: The Education of an Idealist
An upside of quarantine is that I have been doing a lot more reading than I usually would. I always do a lot of reading attached to my PhD research, which can get tedious at times, but I have found myself devouring a non-study related book, The Education of an Idealist, the 2019 memoir by Obama-era United National Ambassador Samantha Power.
The book tells the story of Power’s rise from middle-class suburban girl in Dublin, Ireland, of migrating to the US as a young girl, through to working in the White House and at the United Nations, with a stint in between in Bosnia to report on the genocide taking place there in the 1990s.
Power writes with incredible clarity and humour given the complex and often dark nature of her story’s content. Her relative lack of guile is rare in a memoir, particularly by one who has been successful in politics (it can easily be contrasted with Malcolm Turnbull’s recently released memoir on that score). She talks of her at times difficult upbringing, brought about in large part due to her father’s rampant alcoholism. She writes movingly of his death at a young age, having literally drank himself to death alone in his house in Ireland. His is a death for which she blames herself, having left him to migrate to the US with her mother and brother at such a young age.
For someone as interested in politics as me, there are plenty of amazing and intriguing behind the scenes insights into life on a presidential campaign and inside the White House. But I think the beauty of the book is that there really is something for everyone. Power writes about her struggles with anxiety, about never quite believing she belongs at the upper echelon of state and international power and about her struggles to toe the party line on issues she obviously cares very passionately about.
The book’s title alludes to its central tension, one that I think is at the core of many people’s interest in public affairs. How can Power, who made her name for herself as a vocal critic of US (and world) inaction on matters of humanitarian disaster such as genocide, come to terms with the often painful and indeed conflicting decisions that need to be made once you go inside the system. That, I think can be translated into many walks of life, beyond just politics and government.
As a result, I would recommend the book to anyone, no matter their interests.