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A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide Paperback – November 14, 2014
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- Print length690 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateNovember 14, 2014
- Dimensions5.24 x 1.71 x 7.99 inches
- ISBN-100061120146
- ISBN-13978-0061120145
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Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; Reissue edition (November 14, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 690 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0061120146
- ISBN-13 : 978-0061120145
- Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.24 x 1.71 x 7.99 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,094,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,739 in Violence in Society (Books)
- #3,719 in Jewish Holocaust History
- #17,781 in International & World Politics (Books)
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About the author

Samantha Power is a leading global voice on human rights and international affairs. She served for four years as President Barack Obama’s human rights adviser and then, from 2013 to 2017, in his Cabinet and as US Ambassador to the United Nations. Power is the author of several books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘A Problem From Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide, and has been named one of TIME’s ‘100 Most Influential People’ and one of Forbes’ ‘100 Most Powerful Women’. Currently a professor of practice at Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School, she lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Cass Sunstein, and their two children. Power immigrated to the United States from Ireland at the age of nine.
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She opens the book with a history of the word "genocide" and its recognition as an international crime. The hero of this part of her story is Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word, formulated its legal definition, and badgered the United Nations to adopt the 1948 Genocide Convention (which, sadly, the United States refused to ratify until 1986--and then only to save face after Reagan's embarrassment at Bitburg).
She then moves to her gut-wrenching examples, showing how (except in the case of Kosovo) each followed a nearly predictable trajectory, with a complacent and cowardly world community standing by in denial. Still, she spotlights heroic actions by a few, including William Proxmire, whose 3,211 Senate speeches over 19 years failed to shame his colleagues into passing the Genocide Convention; Peter Galbraith, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff member who struggled to publicize Hussein's gassing of the Kurds; and Robert Dole and Madeleine Albright, whose combined fury forced the Clinton administration to confront the nightmares in Bosnia and Kosovo. Her accounts of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia are especially lucid for those of us whose heads spin with confusion whenever we hear mention of the Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian-Herzegovinian-Slovenian-Macedonian conflicts.
Because Power's stories are so distressing and her goal is so laudable, the sympathetic reader is all the more frustrated by the book's faults, of which there are several. While emotionalism and outrage can be commendable (and understandable, given the inconceivable number of innocent victims whenever the world fails to respond to genocidal atrocities), her pronunciations sometimes betray her zeal. The resulting indignation can often result in Monday-morning quarterbacking and moral condescension, either of which might simply alienate those readers who aren't convinced that the United States has the wherewithal to be the world's policeman. Granted, Power is right to condemn U.S. officials for doing nearly nothing, especially in the case of Rwanda, but she often assumes that what, in retrospect, we should have done is what, at the time, we could have done. (Surely we must do something, but it doesn't follow that anything will do.)
Likewise, she claims that the United States has "done nothing, practically or politically, to prepare itself to respond to genocide," and she bases this statement--and several like it--mostly on the assumption that, before Kosovo, this country has never prevented genocide. Such statements are easy to assert (since genocide has certainly occurred) but impossible to rebut (since it's difficult to claim genocide was prevented in those situations when it didn't happen at all).
Second, she maintains that, given the world's dysfunctional international and regional organizations, the United States must assume the role of white knight. She bridles at suggestions by opponents of unilateral intervention that our status as a superpower will always make our motives suspect or that American ground troops are not as capable of both imposing regional order and handling multiple crises as she seems to believe. (Perhaps our adventures in Iraq have made her reconsider this pollyannaish militarism.) She is unimpeachably correct that our country must act when signs portending genocide are detected, but certainly we must hesitate before we ever do it alone.
A model of successful non-military intervention, for example, is East Timor. Although Power gives a two-sentence mention to the 1975 genocide, she doesn't point out that the United States took the lead in preventing a repeat occurrence in 1999--without committing a single American troop. After an initial hesitation, the U.S. coordinated a multilateral response against Indonesia with members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, support from China, and troops from Australia. (See Michael Hirsch's "At War With Ourselves" for an excellent summary of this unheralded diplomatic coup.) Such a regionally concocted solution might work as well in other--but certainly not all--situations.
Finally, and most seriously, Power is quick to condemn governments and government officials, but (except for an anecdote in the Introduction), she neglects entirely to chastise her colleagues and employers in the media. She repeatedly asserts that political leaders can convince the public to disregard any initial qualms about humanitarian intervention, but she never acknowledges that it is difficult to do so in an environment where journalists and editors entirely ignore (for example) the current horror in Sudan and prefer instead to plaster the Scott Peterson trial across the front page and cover sports-team brawls during every news-hour.
If these criticisms sound disproportionately harsh, it is simply because I am holding Power (and her colleagues in the media) to the same high standards she posits for our elected leaders. My caveats should in no way minimize the importance of her work; instead, "A Problem from Hell" is so successful in large part because it motivates readers to face such unforgivable horrors and to consider how best to prevent them.
Power chronicles some of the major acts of genocide that were committed in the 20th century. Starting with the Turkish slaughter of Armenians in Turkey during World War I, then going on to Cambodia, Iraq, the Balkans, and finally Rwanda where Hutu militias slaughtered about 800,000 Tutsis in 100 days. Power also chronicles the failure of Western powers, especially the United States, to intervene.
Power's study was motivated by the belated response of the Clinton Administration to the killings in Bosnia. She was a freelance journalist at the time and recounts some of the cynical and lame remarks made by officials while 200,000 Bosnians were being killied. It was Warren Christopher who called genocide "a problem from hell," providing her with a title for her study. Western powers did nothing between 1992 and 1995 during which time museums to memorialize the Holocaust were opened with Clinton using the solemn phrase "never again." Well, it did happen again, and under his watch.
During this period, genocide was being committed in Rwanda, which Power described as "the fastest, most efficient killing spree of the 20th century." This would have been easier to stop than the one in Bosnia, yet no US troops were sent nor were UN reinforcements authorized. There were no high-level meetings in the US nor were there public condemnations. The safest response was to look the other way.
Power argues that although the public and elected officials express moral outrage at genocide, the failure to respond is a systemic failure of the American political system. It is not just the Clinton Administration that failed in Bosnia and Rwanda, it has always been the case as far back as the Turkish genocide of Armenians. For the US to intervene militarily for humanitarian purposes the elected officials must have public support. If there is no public support, and there almost never is, the military is reluctant to act. If the military is reluctant, the political classes are reluctant to push for action for fear that it will cost them the next election. Similarly, foreign policy and national security officials are timid in advocating humanitarian intervention for fear of being branded as profligate public spenders. The Clinton Administration was evasive on Rwanda because it was still smarting from its disastrous episode in Somalia. In the end, it is always safer for the public official to err on the side of caution and thrift.
Many Americans believe that it is not our responsiblity to stop the murder of foreigners. "We don't have a dog in that fight," as James Baker characterized it. Power argues that the ideals on which this country is founded requires us to act against genocide. Public support for action, while important, should not be the determining factor. It is more effective if a prominent politician puts his or her reputation on the line and takes up the cause. In 1995, two weeks before the Srebrenica massacre, Bob Dole called for a lifting of the arms embargo on the Bosnian Muslims. Dole's leadership forced Clinton into action, unfortunately it was a case of too little, too late. Bob Dole, however, did not have a dog in the fight in Rwanda and remained silent. Again, it was safer to do nothing.
This book was written before America's intervention in Iraq, but it has surprisingly not been invoked, to my knowledge, by the Bush Administration as a rationale for American unilateralism, which Power in fact is advocating. If the US, for example, had intervened militarily in the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, it would have been the correct action, and I believe the world would have seen it as such. The intervention in Iraq was done for a number of evolving reasons (prevention of genocide was not one of them), and as a result we are still the subject of the world's opprobrium.
Power is right to advocate unilateral American action in the face of genocide, but at the same time, America must not abandon international institutions, despite their inadequacies, and not promote itself as guardian of the international order. As this book has shown, America has not been a very reliable guardian in the past.
Top reviews from other countries
Glad I kept going but, of course, this is not for the casual reader.
A must read for anyone who's interested in political history as a whole and the concept/history of genocide.

















