Dimensions
163 x 236 x 31mm
On January 16‚ 2006‚ Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was inaugurated into office as the President of the Republic of Liberia. After fourteen years of civil conflict and brutal violence‚ during which the economy and physical landscape of Liberia had been destroyed‚ President Sirleaf's election marked a tremendous turning point in the history of the West African nation.
To international observers‚ it was a moment that signaled Libera's commitment to the democratic process and offered great hope to aspiring female leaders around the world.
In this memoir‚ President Sirleaf shares the inside story of her rise to power-from her early childhood; to her experiences with domestic abuse‚ imprisonment‚ and exile; to her fight for democracy and social justice. Born to parents who had been adopted by foreign settlers‚ Sirleaf's world was first transformed by the protracted illness of her father‚ whose political connections had supported the family until his death. At age 17‚ she married an older man and gave birth to four children. With little financial support from her soon-to-be ex-husband‚ President Sirleaf became a full-time working mother‚ jettisoning her role as traditional housewife and beginning her path toward political leadership.
After completing her graduate studies at Harvard University‚ President Sirleaf returned to Liberia to accept a position in the Finance Ministry and first began to speak out against those in power. Her interests in social activism and the advancement of democracy transformed her into a public figure amidst an increasingly turbulent political atmosphere. Several periods of self-imposed exile and return‚ during which she served at the helm of several major businesses and non-profit NGOs‚ culminated in her conviction by the Doe administration to ten years imprisonment and her subsequent house arrest. Fearing for her life‚ President Sirleaf escaped the country by private plane in the early morning hours of her son's wedding day.
President Sirleaf's story is one of surviving and thriving in multiple worlds-from her work‚ travel‚ and study abroad to her door-to-door election campaign in some of Liberia's poorest neighborhoods. It is also the story of an outspoken political and social reformist who‚ despite the dangers‚ fought against the abuses of forceful‚ uncompromising dictators to champion change. Her journey from political reformer‚ to prisoner‚ to president has proved that true revolution comes not by bloody coup‚ but by ballot box and political process. As the woman once called "Africa's Iron Lady" by the Washington Post explains‚ "I represent the whole zodiac of the Liberian contradictions‚ and I know the Liberian potential. If there is anybody who can bring change‚ it's someone whose life experience represents all the good and the bad" (New Yorker).
