Educated: A Memoir - Tara Westover

Tara Westover, ExecutiveGrowth Summaries

Category: Education

Tags: Education, Autobiography & Biographies, Adults

An unforgettable memoir in the tradition of The Glass Castle about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University, Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her head-for-the-hills bag. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her fathers junkyard., Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Taras older brothers became violent., Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathemati