MIGHTY BE THEIR POWERS chronicles the unthinkable violence Leymah Gbowee has faced throughout her life and the peace she has helped to broker by empowering her countrywomen and others around the world to take action and change history. As a young 17 year-old girl growing up in Africa, Gbowee was broken by a savage war when violence reached her native Monrovia, depriving her of the education she yearned for and claiming the lives of relatives and friends. As war continued to destroy Liberia, Gbowee's bitterness turned to rage-fueled action as she realized it is women who bear the greatest burden in prolonged conflicts. Passionate and charismatic, Gbowee was instrumental in galvanizing hundreds, if not thousands of women in Liberia in 2003 to force peace in the region after 14 years of war. She began organizing Christian and Muslim women to demonstrate together, launching protests and eventually a sex strike. This is an extraordinary memoir in the vein of Aayan Hirsi Ali and Queen Noor. It chronicles the unthinkable violence Gbowee has faced throughout her life and the peace she helped to broker by empowering her countrywomen and others around the world to take action.Sometimes, it takes just one woman to change history.

About the Author

Leymah Gbowee is the DAILY BEAST's Africa columnist and executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, in Ghana. She is a founding member and former coordinator of the Women in Peace program/West African Network for Peace program. She served as the commissioner-designate for the Liberia Truch and Reconcilliation Commission. In 2007, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government honored Ms. Gbowee with the Blue Ribbon Peace Award. In 2009, Gbowee and the women of Liberia were awarded the Profiles in Courage Award by the Kennedy Library Foundation. Gbowee is based in Ghana, and is a single mother of six.