University News | March 30, 2011

Read more about Samantha Power, influencer of Obama's Libya policy

The human-rights activist as presidential adviser

Samantha Power — Samantha Power | Photograph by Justin Ide/Harvard News Office

The New York Times reports that Samantha Power, J.D. '99—former executive director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and now at the National Security Council—has an important influence on President Barack Obama's policy toward U.S. military involvement in Libya.

Read Jennifer Leaning's review of Power's acclaimed book, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide. Harvard Magazine also published "Fixing Foreign Policy," an essay adapted from Power's 2005-2006 Maurine and Robert Rothschild Lecture (delivered under the auspices of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study)—a critique of the country's international engagements at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Finally, Power's Harvard Law School Class Day address from 2010 is available as well.

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