Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World - Softcover

Power, Samantha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141020814 ISBN 13: 9780141020815

Publisher: Penguin, 2009

Synopsis

Sergio Vieira de Mello-a humanitarian, peacemaker and state builder -was at centre of the most significant geopolitical crises of the last half-century. Born in 1948, just as the post-World War II order was taking shape, he died in a terrorist attack on UN headquarters in Iraq in 2003 as the battle lines in the twenty first-century's first great polarizing struggle were being drawn.

This is a dual biography: the story of a man who never stopped learning and the biography of a perilous world whose ills are too big to ignore but too complex to manage quickly or cheaply. Even as Vieira de Mello arranged food deliveries, organized refugee returns, or negotiated with warlords, he pressed his colleagues to join him in grappling with such questions 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 simply posing these questions; he had to find answers, apply them, and live with the consequences.

About this title

Review:

'Chasing the Flame is a brilliantly researched biography about an extraordinary man' - Richard Beeston, The Times 'a compelling work, culminating in a brilliant and moving reconstruction of Vieira de Mello's doomed last mission in Iraq' - Rosemary Righter, TLS

From the Back Cover:

'A stirring portrait of courage and tenacity ... In this captivating life story, the charming Brazilian internationalist emerges as a wry, Scotch-loving, womanizing philosopher, a kind of secular saint' Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down

Sergio Vieira de Mello - peacemaker, troubleshooter and charismatic negotiator - lived an extraordinary life at the centre of some of the most dramatic international crises of the last half century. As UN High Commissioner he tried to bring an end to the slaughter in Bosnia, talk to genocidal warriors in Congo and clear up the fallout of the Iraq invasion, where he was killed in 2003.

Through the prism of this extraordinary life, Samantha Power, one of the most prominent thinkers in international affairs today, tells the story of the flashpoints in our recent history - and the perilous world we live in.

'A brilliantly researched biography about an extraordinary man' Richard Beeston, The Times

'Bravery is one of the few qualities valued in all cultures, and Sergio had it in spades ... Power is well qualified to tell the story of his eventful life and tragic death' Adam Roberts, Independent

'A work of vivid reportage' Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent

'Remarkable ... a gripping story' Edward Mortimer, Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141020814
• ISBN 13: 9780141020815
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 640