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A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide Paperback – May 6, 2003

by
Samantha Power (Author)
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4.0 out of 5 stars 288 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 644 pages
  • Publisher: HarpPeren; Reprint edition (May 6, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0060541644
  • ISBN-13: 978-0060541644
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (288 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #647,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsInspirational
By A Customer on February 6, 2003
Format: Hardcover
While one might think that a book about genocide would be depressing, I found reading this book to have the opposite effect. It is inspiring to read the stories of people like Lemkin and Senator Proxmire who doggedly prodded the world to pay attention to this crime. It is also energizing to share the author's outrage at policymakers who trot out every excuse imaginable to avoid taking action in response to reports of genocide. I'm not sure any other book has demonstrated the pattern of response to genocide that is documented in this book. While we pay lip service (particularly since the Holocaust) to the idea that "never again" should such crimes be permitted to occur, every time we see evidence of such crimes actually occurring -- in Cambodia, in Iraq in the late 80's, in Rwanda, in Bosnia -- our leaders are afraid even to use the word genocide to describe them (such as Warren Christopher famously allowing officials to admit only that "acts" of genocide may have taken place in Rwanda). The author is not suggesting that the U.S. intervene in every civil war, but instead that we at least speak out against evil, rather than encouraging it by our silence. Not a dry, dull book at all, but exciting to read.
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5.0 out of 5 starsIncredible piece of scholarship
By Joshua Gaines on January 10, 2004
Format: Paperback
Many of the negative reviews of this book have either decried it for depicting the Armenian genocide or dismissed it as liberal hackery. Both of these objections are spurious. Power has duly researched the Armenian genocide and simply documented the American and international responses to it. Many of the objections actually try to implicate the Armenians as provoking the Turkish authorities into the genocide, while others deny anything took place at all.
As for the charges of a liberal bias, absolutely none exists. And I wonder if anyone who alleges it has actually read the book. One reviewer actually calls Power a communist sympathizer for not reporting on Chinese and Russian atrocities. This absence is understandable when one looks at the fact that American legislators never missed an opportunity to wave moral superiority over Russian and Chinese communists. We almost always criticized them for that sort of the thing. Hell, one of the main reasons for the passage of the Helsinki convention was to be able to criticize the communists for failing to live up to its ratification. There is no liberal bias in this book. Power lauds Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole for making the Balkan genocides a campaign issue, even going so far as to buck the many dissenters in his party. Indeed, even Jesse Helms receives a paean for calling on the Clinton administration to apprehend war criminals. Clinton himself receives a hearty dose of criticism for his languid responses to genocide in Rwanda and the Balkans.
This book is brilliant. Anyone curious about the heroes and villains of twentieth century genocide will be satisfied after reading this.
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn Awesome Work!
By A Customer on January 12, 2004
Format: Paperback
This outstanding book was difficult to put down, and even more difficult to stop thinking about. Its topic was burdensome, sad, terribly unrelenting and tragic. Samantha Power's thorough research, well documented bibliography, and clean articulate writing style made the reading of such a depressing topic interesting and compelling. This book took me about a month of careful reading to complete and I highly recommend it.
What disturbs me more than the topic of Ms. Power's book, however, is the lengthy and jumbled review below entitled "Scholarship from Hell." The reviewer is engaging in sophistry designed to discredit Ms. Power and mislead. Beginning with the phrase "Armenian Relocation" the reviewer spirals into ten, inarticulate, horribly written and confusing paragraphs whose sole intent is to misdirect and mislead. Notice the use of the phrase "Ottoman-Armenian Conflict" giving the impression of moral equivalence and balance. In paragraph three, he then attempts to discredit Ms. Power - and subsequently her book - by claiming she did not utilize "objective sources" and as having "...a lack of sufficient grounding in history to tackle a subject as sensitive and controversial as the Ottoman-Armenian conflict." There is nothing controversial or sensitive about the Armenian Genocide, and the careful construction of this babble, undermines Ms Power and devalues the awesome bulwark of research she has undertaken and produced, and is intended to mislead the reader by throwing as much junk at the wall as possible and hoping that some of it sticks. Despite the fact that Ms. Power's work is almost seven hundred pages long (with a bibliography as long as a short novel), the reviewer claims that she fails to refer to "objective scholars" in reference to the Armenian Genocide.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsA strong but limited argument for intervention.
By gwc on September 4, 2003
Format: Paperback
"A Problem from Hell" is a straightforward condemnation of the US government for inadequately dealing with instances of twentieth century genocide in Armenia, Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. It is a passionately written and often suffers from an intemperate advocacy that doesn't seriously consider any counter-argument.
The legal history of genocide is first reviewed, concentrating on the work of Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer who defined the word. Implicit throughout that which follows is Lemkin's principle that the United States (or any other capable nation) has not only the right but the responsibility to interfere when genocide occurs. Power argues that in every historical instance, the US government did in fact recognize genocide (even if it didn't admit as much) and refused to react adequately, if at all. However, her reliance on international treaties and easy moral outrage makes for a rather weak case, for two reasons.
First, the strongly interventionist position is advocated without any serious consideration of the costs. Although she asserts that diplomatic and economic pressures might be effective, it is conceded that most cases would require military force and the deployment of ground troops. At the very least this would lead to American deaths, and in some cases carries that danger of a wider war. Such concerns are generally dismissed as a "realist" stance which needn't be a concern in the face of genocide, although it is acknowledged that NATO intervention in Kosovo has had "mixed" results.
The book's second and greater weakness is to place the blame for immoral inaction on top State Department officials and, ultimately, presidential administrations without addressing the public opinions by which they are constrained.Read more ›
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