BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks Podcast.

Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take

with them if they were cast away to a desert island.

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

I hope you enjoy listening.

My cast away this week is the author and academic Samantha Power.

Once labeled the conscience of President Obama, she was a key player throughout both terms of

his administration. First as an advisor on foreign policy, then as America's youngest ever,

ambassador to the UN. Born in London to Irish parents, she spent her early life in Dublin

before the family settled in Atlanta. Her first ambition was to become a sports broadcaster.

Until one day she saw live footage of the events in Tiana and Monsquare in 1989,

and that changed everything. By the age of 23, she was reporting on the war in Bosnia,

where she was described as a breath of fresh outrage by her colleagues. Her experiences inspired

a book, interrogating the American response to genocides throughout the 20th century.

It won the Pulitzer Prize and placed her on the then Senator Obama's radar. She went from

criticizing government policy to working to shape it. She's currently professor of global leadership,

public policy and human rights at Harvard. She says the road to hell is paved with good intentions

to be sure, but turning a blind eye to the toughest problems in the world is a guaranteed shortcut

to the same destination. Samantha Power, welcome to Desert Island Disks. So glad to be here.

So let's get straight into it with Joe Biden's arrival at the White House. Rumors are circulating

that you might be returning to frontline politics. Have you had a call from Joe Biden yet?

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