"The best way to understand today's messy world is to read about the inspiring life and diplomatic genius of Sergio Vieira de Mello." -Walter Isaacson

Originally published as Chasing the Flame.

Before his death in 2003 in Iraq's first major suicide bomb attack, Sergio Vieira de Mello--a humanitarian and peacemaker with the United Nations--placed himself at the center of the most significant geopolitical crises of the last half-century. He cut deals with the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, forcibly confronted genocidal killers from Rwanda, and used his intellect and charisma to try to tame militant extremists in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Known as a "cross between James Bond and Bobby Kennedy," Vieira de Mello managed to save lives in the world's most dangerous places, while also pressing the world's most powerful countries to join him in grappling with such urgent dilemmas as: When should killers be engaged, and when should they be shunned? When is military force justified? How can outsiders play a role in healing broken people and broken places? He did not have the luxury of merely posing these questions; Vieira de Mello had to find answers, apply them, and live with the consequences.

With Sergio, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Education of an Idealist Samantha Power offers a profile in courage and humanity--and an unforgettable meditation on how best to manage the deadly challenges of the twenty-first century.

Autorentext

Samantha Power is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Power's work has been awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for general non-fiction, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Council on Foreign Relations' Arthur Ross Prize for the best book in U.S. foreign policy. She began her career as a journalist, reporting from places such as Bosnia, East Timor, and Kosovo, and has contributed regularly to The Atlantic, The New Republic, and The New Yorker. She is the recipient of two National Magazine Awards. A member of President Obama's Cabinet, she was the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations.