When you combine such a masterful writer as Samantha Power with such a charismatic, intelligent and dedicated statesman like Sergio Vieira de Mello, and add events that have shaped the world so that only the location need be named (Cambodia, Iraq) you should expect one of the best biographies you've ever read. And you won't be disappointed in this case.

Samantha Power is a journalist and her skills of observation and story telling are at a peak as she presents this biography of a man who spent his life working in the UN and serving in some of the most dangerous places in the world.

Sergio Vieira de Mello was the best of what international representatives should be. He was dedicated to his organization, and to the well being of those he was sent to work with. He was committed to improving the lives of ordinary people. He was also a philosopher who strove to understand both the opressed and the oppressors.

This book is an interesting look at some of the major challenges facing countries after civil war or invasion. It also provides deep insight into the workings of the UN and the capacity of the international community to address challenges.

Above all, it's a biography. The chapter on "August 19" is so moving with all the personal impacts of war described in a way that will bring tears to your eyes. Not only the deaths of Sergio and other UN workers, but the courage of the rescuers and the tragic way Sergio's fiancee Carolina was treated.

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Sergio Vieira de Mello of Brazil (simply "Sergio" to many) was the personification of what the United Nations could and should be. As Paul Bremer's adviser Ryan Cocker once said, "Sergio is as good as it gets not only for the UN, but for international diplomacy." Sergio was the UN Secretary Generals "ultimate go-to guy", a nation builder in the world's toughest spots like East Timor, Cambodia, Kosovo. No one who met him - from George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq War, to the Khmer Rouge, to Slobodan Milosevic - came away untouched by his intelligence, physical bearing, charisma and integrity. It was a major blow to the world when he and 14 other UN staff were killed on August 19th 2003 by an al-Qeada suicide bomber at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, an event that has become known as the UN's "9/11". He was often spoken of as candidate for the position of UN Secretary General, but his career was cut short before he had a chance to become the world-renowned elder statesman he was destined to be. This biography by Pulitzer Prize winning Samantha Power is a monument to his legacy and should connect with a wide audience. Not only an enthralling story of adventure (Sergio was almost always in the field in dangerous situations and places), but equally a revelation of what was happening behind the headlines in major crisis around the world over the past 30 years - and it is the story of the UN itself, as mirrored in the ups and downs of Sergio's life and character, its faults, weaknesses and strengths.

Power has managed to convey Sergio's persona with utmost sympathy, seductively drawing the reader into Sergio's world. His younger staff members were often likened to puppy dogs who followed him around, at one point even into the bushes to take a leak - I often felt this way reading his biography, like a puppy dog I didn't want him to leave or for the book to end, for the inevitable to happen. I dreaded the last chapter titled "August 19 2003" - it is the most thrilling chapter in the book, a masterpiece of journalistic writing - it can bring the reader to tears in a way no fiction could achieve. Samantha Power is an adviser to Barak Obama "the person whose rigor and compassion bear the closest resemblance to Sergio's that I have ever seen," she says in the credits. Power also knows Terry George, director of Hotel Rwanda, who advised her on this book and who expressed an interesting in making a movie version, we can only hope.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd ( )