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A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
by Samantha Power

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368731.A_Problem_from_Hell_America_and_the_Age_of_Genocide?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1174179182m/368731.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368731.A_Problem_from_Hell_America_and_the_Age_of_Genocide?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13271.Samantha_Power">Samantha Power</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19192048?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a thorough, excellent book, built around case-studies of genocides throughout the 20th century and, especially, the American (non-)response to them. Power also weaves in a history of the term, and the people in and out of the US government who fought to make fighting genocide a core part of our foreign policy. "A Problem From Hell" is as definitive, essential, and engaging a read as there is on this topic.
 
 Genocide, of course, is depressing. Power knows better than to just layer on the anecdotes of rape and murder. She knows that thanks to the likes of Raphael Lemkin and William Proxmire, we live in an age where people now know what genocide is and abhor it. In a post-Rwanda world, we need no convincing.
 
 The thrust of this book, therefore, is on what the US knew in each case of 20th century genocide, and how we responded. Typically, the American response has been to do nothing. On occasion, for geopolitical reasons, the United States actually wound up actively or passively supporting the guys who were committing the genocide (see Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein). In the cases of the Turkish genocide of Armenians, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, and others, American officials either ignored the information, downplayed the atrocities, or argued that we could do nothing to intervene. The writing is lively and engaging, the anecdotes are telling and compelling, and the research is extremely thorough. This is the strength of the book.
 
 Power's conclusion is that we could have done much more to stop most of these genocides, but she doesn't really focus on policy. In the additional materials on later editions of this book, she argues that we've made great progress given the overwhelming public call for stopping the genocide in Darfur. But in a post-Iraq world, Power worries that the interventionist genocide-stopping bombing campaigns that Clinton belatedly undertook in Bosnia and then in Kosovo might be relegated to the dustbin of history, rather than starting a new trend.
 
 This brings us to weak point of this book, which is in the policy prescriptions, to the extent that there are any. Power wants to use international institutions, particularly the UN, and is enamored of "responsibility to protect," but the only successful genocide-stopping intervention in the 20th century was Kosovo, which was undertaken by the Clinton Administration without UN authorization due to Russian opposition. (Likewise, can you imagine China standing pat and allowing the Security Council to authorize military action in Darfur? Neither can I.)
 
 Furthermore, Power dismisses as fatalists the people who argued that US intervention could be counterproductive and destabilizing, or that the fighting was two-sided, or that it would become a quagmire (all legitimate questions in Darfur, for example), or any one of a number of explanations for US noninterventionism to head off the brutalities of despotic regimes. But given how many "Bosnia generation" politicians (Richard Holbrooke, Tony Blair, the Clintons) enthusiastically jumped onto the Iraq war bandwagon, the question remains unanswered whether the intervention skeptics are actually wrong.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/118066?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Joe's review
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bookshelves: politicsandimportantpeople

This is a thorough, excellent book, built around case-studies of genocides throughout the 20th century and, especially, the American (non-)response to them. Power also weaves in a history of the term, and the people in and out of the US government who fought to make fighting genocide a core part of our foreign policy. "A Problem From Hell" is as definitive, essential, and engaging a read as there is on this topic.

Genocide, of course, is depressing. Power knows better than to just layer on the anecdotes of rape and murder. She knows that thanks to the likes of Raphael Lemkin and William Proxmire, we live in an age where people now know what genocide is and abhor it. In a post-Rwanda world, we need no convincing.

The thrust of this book, therefore, is on what the US knew in each case of 20th century genocide, and how we responded. Typically, the American response has been to do nothing. On occasion, for geopolitical reasons, the United States actually wound up actively o...more This is a thorough, excellent book, built around case-studies of genocides throughout the 20th century and, especially, the American (non-)response to them. Power also weaves in a history of the term, and the people in and out of the US government who fought to make fighting genocide a core part of our foreign policy. "A Problem From Hell" is as definitive, essential, and engaging a read as there is on this topic.

Genocide, of course, is depressing. Power knows better than to just layer on the anecdotes of rape and murder. She knows that thanks to the likes of Raphael Lemkin and William Proxmire, we live in an age where people now know what genocide is and abhor it. In a post-Rwanda world, we need no convincing.

The thrust of this book, therefore, is on what the US knew in each case of 20th century genocide, and how we responded. Typically, the American response has been to do nothing. On occasion, for geopolitical reasons, the United States actually wound up actively or passively supporting the guys who were committing the genocide (see Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein). In the cases of the Turkish genocide of Armenians, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, and others, American officials either ignored the information, downplayed the atrocities, or argued that we could do nothing to intervene. The writing is lively and engaging, the anecdotes are telling and compelling, and the research is extremely thorough. This is the strength of the book.

Power's conclusion is that we could have done much more to stop most of these genocides, but she doesn't really focus on policy. In the additional materials on later editions of this book, she argues that we've made great progress given the overwhelming public call for stopping the genocide in Darfur. But in a post-Iraq world, Power worries that the interventionist genocide-stopping bombing campaigns that Clinton belatedly undertook in Bosnia and then in Kosovo might be relegated to the dustbin of history, rather than starting a new trend.

This brings us to weak point of this book, which is in the policy prescriptions, to the extent that there are any. Power wants to use international institutions, particularly the UN, and is enamored of "responsibility to protect," but the only successful genocide-stopping intervention in the 20th century was Kosovo, which was undertaken by the Clinton Administration without UN authorization due to Russian opposition. (Likewise, can you imagine China standing pat and allowing the Security Council to authorize military action in Darfur? Neither can I.)

Furthermore, Power dismisses as fatalists the people who argued that US intervention could be counterproductive and destabilizing, or that the fighting was two-sided, or that it would become a quagmire (all legitimate questions in Darfur, for example), or any one of a number of explanations for US noninterventionism to head off the brutalities of despotic regimes. But given how many "Bosnia generation" politicians (Richard Holbrooke, Tony Blair, the Clintons) enthusiastically jumped onto the Iraq war bandwagon, the question remains unanswered whether the intervention skeptics are actually wrong....less

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