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"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide

Samantha Power

4.24 · Rating details · 9,194 ratings · 552 reviews

From the Armenian Genocide to the ethnic cleansings of Kosovo and Darfur, modern history is haunted by acts of brutal violence. Yet American leaders who vow “never again” repeatedly fail to stop genocide. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, A Problem From Hell draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington’s top policymakers, thousands ...more

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Paperback, 656 pages

Published December 24th 2013 by Basic Books (first published March 15th 2002)

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Oct 07, 2008 Mr. rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Samantha Power's 'A Problem from Hell' is a broad attempt to document the major acts of genocide/human rights violations of the 20th century paired with the international community's subsequent negligence in each case. She reports on the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and especially her major areas of research- Rwanda and Serbia.

However, Powers is content to simply recount major instances of crimes against humanity that the U.S. and other major Western powers simply ignored (a worthy histori ...more

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Jun 06, 2013 Karen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century-history, genocide

This is a difficult book to read. Both for its content and length. Most books about genocide are difficult, so this is no surprise. I have read extensively about the Armenian Genocide (Meds Yeghern), and the Shoah, or Holocaust of European Jews. These parts of the book added little to my knowledge. But, the rest of the book was very informative and distressing, relaying the stories of genocide after the world had declared "Never again"!
These were the stories of the Cambodian, Kurdish, Bosnian, R This is a difficult book to read. Both for its content and length. Most books about genocide are difficult, so this is no surprise. I have read extensively about the Armenian Genocide (Meds Yeghern), and the Shoah, or Holocaust of European Jews. These parts of the book added little to my knowledge. But, the rest of the book was very informative and distressing, relaying the stories of genocide after the world had declared "Never again"!
These were the stories of the Cambodian, Kurdish, Bosnian, Rwandan, Srebrenica (part of the Bosnian, and Kosovar genocides. The history is made more interesting because these things happened in my lifetime! While I was going about my life, going to school, getting married, and building my career, these slaughters were taking place and being debated and reported on. While I remember bits of some of these tragedies, more about others, I don't remember the details, or what I felt at the time. (I assume horror when the details were finally revealed.) I thus share in the shame of knowing atrocities happened on my watch. I did not protest, write letters, or raise hell! I felt self righteous as I asserted, when reading about the Shoah, that I would have protested, done everything in my power, to make a difference in ending the slaughter. However, I will be one of those future generations will ask about. Why did you do nothing? Very humbling!
The rest of the book relates the history of Mr. Lemkin, a Polish Jew, who lost family members in the Shoah, who coined the term genocide, and gave the rest of his life working to see this become an international crime, punishable in International Courts as "crimes against humanity". The United States took over 40 years to ratify this United Nations resolution, long after many other countries had done so. The first case of genocide coming before an international tribunal, after the Nuremberg trials, was that involving the Serbs against Muslims in the 1990s!
We read about the foot dragging of the United States, over and over again, through multiple presidencies, and see how the State Departments response to many atrocities, was exactly the same as their response to the Holocaust/ Shoah! I gained respect for some politicians, and lost some respect for others, who looked the other way, even multiple times!
The attacks on American soil of 9/11 brought it home in a way like no other. When a group wants to annihilate another group for "who" they are, not for anything they have done, it is Chilling!
I will end with a quote from the book, which shook me. She was discussing the Rwandan massacre, explaining that they experienced the equivalent of more than two World Trade Center attacks every single day for 100 days! "When, on September 12, 2001, the United States turned for help to its friends around the world, Americans were gratified by the overwhelming response. When the Tutsi cried out (or the Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Bosnians, Kurds), by contrast, every country in the world turned away." ...more

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Mar 02, 2014 Alec rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I have a lot of complaints and very few positive remarks about this book. I'll start with the little good: I enjoyed the biographical information about Raphael Lemkin. That said, there are many other more in-depth books about him out there that could tell an even fuller story.

The majority of this book, however, was a hollow argument for the superiority of liberal interventionism. The structure of each case study goes like this: a genocide started; the US MAY have borne some blame for the conditi I have a lot of complaints and very few positive remarks about this book. I'll start with the little good: I enjoyed the biographical information about Raphael Lemkin. That said, there are many other more in-depth books about him out there that could tell an even fuller story.

The majority of this book, however, was a hollow argument for the superiority of liberal interventionism. The structure of each case study goes like this: a genocide started; the US MAY have borne some blame for the conditions that allowed the violence to start; the US didn't intervene; OR the US did intervene and everything went great. The historical background for all the genocides is superficial at best. For example, Power never even addresses the issue of how the Hutu and Tutsi identities came into being in Rwanda. She mentions that there was some animosity based on the structure of the colonial administration and not much else. I understand that the majority of this book was dedicated to the American response to genocides throughout history, but not properly contextualizing the situation is at best a mistake and at worst a deliberate attempt to strengthen an argument. I was amazed that this book was so long, given how little detail she put into the case studies.

Most importantly, though, I think this book operates from an inherently false and dangerous premise. The basic assumption from which the whole book flows is that the US is a world superpower (true) and has the means to stop violence around the world (also true). Few people can dispute those two facts. And yes, the US should make as many efforts as possible to stop violence, especially genocide, around the world. But the US is also one of the leading causes of violence around the world. From Chile in the 1970s to Iraq in the 2000s, the US has been responsible for high levels of violence and human rights abuse. Power doesn't even mention these points, instead focusing on how the US could have stopped other states who were killing people. Presenting only this half of the coin is to portray the US as a state that just hasn't done enough a couple of times to stop these huge acts of violence committed by other states.

That is the danger of this book's premise: propagating the idea that the American government is just a bystander that failed to act, and not a primary source of death and murder. The cases Power points to are correctly labeled as examples of American failure and shame. The US could and should have done more to stop the Rwandan genocide and many others like it. But the US also should not have led the overthrow of many democratically elected governments and inserted strongmen who oppressed and murdered their own citizens (Pinochet and Mobutu, to name two). Not pointing out both of these faults in American foreign policy is, again, either intellectually lazy or worse.
...more

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Apr 19, 2009 Andrew rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Samantha Power has written a very well-researched book profiling cases of genocide in the 21st century (in Turkey, Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, Balkans, Srebrenica, and Kosovo). Powers descibed the crusade taken on by numerous heroic individuals to avert genocide (none of whom I had previously heard of), such as Raphael Lemkin, William Proxmire, Henry Morgenthau, and James Kenneth Galbraith.

Power not only describes the recognition and responses to genocide in each of the case studies p Samantha Power has written a very well-researched book profiling cases of genocide in the 21st century (in Turkey, Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, Balkans, Srebrenica, and Kosovo). Powers descibed the crusade taken on by numerous heroic individuals to avert genocide (none of whom I had previously heard of), such as Raphael Lemkin, William Proxmire, Henry Morgenthau, and James Kenneth Galbraith.

Power not only describes the recognition and responses to genocide in each of the case studies profiled, but she also describes the birth of the word genocide and the UN treaty that criminalized it. We take for granted the recognition and definition of the term "genocide", but at the time of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, the word did not even exist. We also take for granted the existence of a UN treaty condemning genocide, but it took 40 years after UN adoption for the US to even ratify the treaty, fearing that accusations of genocide might be brought against the US.

Power reveals many examples of the impotence of the United Nations (particularly the United States) in preventing or intervening in mass killings in the 20th century. Not until national interests were in jeopardy (and after genocide had already taken a heavy toll) did the United States and the international community act. For example, not until American oil interests in Kuwait were threatened did the United States intervene against Iraq in its extermination of the Kurds. The Anfal Campaign of 1988 carried out by Saddam Hussein killed ~150,000 Kurds and importantly was carried out with chemical weapons; yet, the US showed a range of reactions (that typify its response to the other atrocities as well): denial, blame of the victims, hope that perpetrators could be swayed, downplaying of the accusations, and simply inaction. In the end, there was insurmountable (with rare exceptions) inertia to even condemning acts of genocide.

Power is critical of previous American presidents (particularly hard on G. Bush I and Bill Clinton) for their inaction, but she is balanced in her lambast. She provides sufficient details on the political climate and internal debates in the various administrations that provides contexts in which the decisions to not intervene took place. She frequently concedes ground to counterpoints, such as the idea that action might actually exacerbate genocide. This adds depth to her book and gives her credibility as a realist rather than some hippie liberal.

The book does not get a 5/5 from me because of the lack of coverage of atrocities that the US contributed to. Powers asserts numerous times that the US was concerned that "rogue" states might bring up genocide charges against the US, but she did not elaborate on the validity of these claims. The US was complicit in and contributed to genocide carried out by Pinochet in Chile and the military in Guatemala, among others. Also, US treatment of Native Americans could also be counted as a genocide. None of these accounts were mentioned. These inconvenient aspects of our history is crucial in understanding why the United States dragged its feet on ratifying the UN treaty on genocide and why the US voted against the creation of the International Criminal Court, a permanent tribunal to prosecute genocide and other crimes against humanity. These details are important int understanding why the United States has been so inept in responding to these human atrocities, but were not covered.

I would describe my political views as that of a pacifist, but this book has turned me towards the idea of the need for a truly independent international body (rather than the UN) that can and will intervene militarily to avert genocide.

All in all, this was a stellar piece of investigative work that taught me a lot about the history of genocide. The progress in making genocide history is painstakingly slow, but the progress is apparent and of course the hope that the world will be able to shake inertia toresponding to genocide in the future. ...more

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Apr 26, 2014 Bob rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: political-science, history

Samantha Power gives a compelling account of the twentieth century history of genocide and American responses (largely non-responses) to this horrendous evil. She covers a sobering reality with a journalists skill of both careful documentation and rendering a riveting narrative.

She begins with the life of Rafael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent who became fascinated at the crimes against humanity wrought by the Turks against Armenians in World War 1. Fleeing Poland when he recognizes th Samantha Power gives a compelling account of the twentieth century history of genocide and American responses (largely non-responses) to this horrendous evil. She covers a sobering reality with a journalists skill of both careful documentation and rendering a riveting narrative.

She begins with the life of Rafael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent who became fascinated at the crimes against humanity wrought by the Turks against Armenians in World War 1. Fleeing Poland when he recognizes the same patterns in the Third Reich, he suffered the loss of most of his family and became a lifelong advocate against these crimes, to which he gave the term "genocide". His crowning achievement was to participate in the drafting of the UN conventions against genocide.

And so we come to the US response. Lemkin died in 1959 without seeing the US ratify these conventions, which would have done so much to strengthen the world's response to genocide. We see the bloody regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the war-weary non-response of the US. Ultimately, our former enemies, the Vietnamese brought down this bloody regime and exposed their crimes. Only in 1985, after Reagan's disastrous visit to Bitburg did he push for the passage of the genocide conventions, although in a qualified form to protect the US against genocide charges.

Sadly, even the Holocaust, even Cambodia are insufficient to arouse the conscience of the US. Power documents a studied avoidance by our political leaders, that discounts evidence of genocide, that equivocates on calling these crimes "genocide", that fails to use even US diplomatic and economic influence against genocide, and is unwilling to risk American lives to save the lives of the thousands who died in the successive genocides she chronicles in Kurdish Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. By and large, Power chalks this up to a determination that American interests were not directly involved, resulting in the moral equivocations to justify inaction.

The latter part of the book chronicles what can happen when the US does act, as it finally did in Kosovo. Goaded by political opposition, the Clinton administration authorized US involvement with NATO bombings and subsequent peace-keeping efforts that brought an end to the Milosevic regime's efforts to exterminate or "cleanse" the land of Albanians in Kosovo. And subsequently it supported the seizure of Milosevic and many other war criminals to be tried for genocide at the Hague. Very belatedly Rafael Lemkin's dream is realized.

The book ends in 2002, just after 9/11. Since then we have witnessed genocide in the South Sudan, and a current ominous situation in the Central African Republic. Samantha Power is now US ambassador to the United Nations and a senior official in the Obama administration. It will be interesting to see whether Power can change from the inside the culture of inaction she decried from the outside. ...more

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May 11, 2018 Ana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: absolute, about-murders, geopolitics-security, page-turner, war-stories, racism, somehow-societal, of-life-and-death, genocide, law-abiding-citizen

Samantha Power is an Irish born, American raised woman who served in a myriad of important posts within the US Government, including US Ambassador to the United Nations. Given her high status and delicate position, you wouldn't be blamed if you thought that she, like many others who held public office, would NOT write a book about how absolutely disgusting the US behaviour has been with regards to genocide. And yet she did. And this book is it. The size and scope of this work is huge - Armenia, ...more

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Jul 27, 2018 Vidur Kapur rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, politics

In this forcefully argued book, Samantha Power urges the United States to place humanitarian objectives at the centre of its foreign policy agenda, and warns against narrowly defined conceptions of the US "national interest" which have often served to prevent the United States from intervening whilst genocides have taken place. It is well-argued, extremely well-documented, and Power attempts to engage with the strongest arguments against her position. One exception to this is that she does not r In this forcefully argued book, Samantha Power urges the United States to place humanitarian objectives at the centre of its foreign policy agenda, and warns against narrowly defined conceptions of the US "national interest" which have often served to prevent the United States from intervening whilst genocides have taken place. It is well-argued, extremely well-documented, and Power attempts to engage with the strongest arguments against her position. One exception to this is that she does not really grapple with the question of whether it is right for the West to bypass the UN Security Council (if necessary) when carrying out a military intervention. Thus, while her section on Kosovo addressed many of the arguments levelled against that controversial intervention, the legal aspect was not addressed.

For a book which won the Pulitzer Prize and earned plaudits from across the political spectrum, it is noticeably radical. Like Noam Chomsky, Power accuses the United States government - or rather many individuals within it - of repeatedly being complicit in genocide due to concern for US economic and strategic interests, as well as US lives, outweighing concern for hundreds of thousands of innocent victims. For example, when criticising the US for its failure to prevent Saddam Hussein's genocide against the Kurds, she writes that "U.S. patience would have worn thin far sooner if not for American farming, manufacturing and geopolitical interests in Iraq".

Comparisons between Samantha Power and Noam Chomsky may appear to be far-fetched; after all, Chomsky is a dissident while Power was the US Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013-2017. Yet, Power herself - while criticizing what she perceives to be Chomsky's reflexive anti-Americanism - endorses his core framework in a 2004 review of his book, Hegemony or Survival:

...it is essential to demand, as Chomsky does, that a country with the might of the United States stop being so selective in applying its principles... he is right to demand that officials in Washington devote themselves more zealously to strengthening international institutions, curbing arms flows and advancing human rights.

This explains why some on the US right opposed her appointment as Obama's UN Ambassador. The similarities between her views and Noam Chomsky's were noted more than once by right-wing columnists. Moreover, on questioning before the appointment, she had to repeatedly disavow things she had written about the United States being an "empire", and on the need for “a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored or permitted by the United States.”

Of course, this isn't to say that her book was endorsed by the Chomskyite left. Far from it. When the late Howard Zinn, who was another darling of the anti-imperialist left, wrote (before going on to criticise her) that "Samantha Power has done extraordinary work in chronicling the genocides of our time, and in exposing how the Western powers were complicit by their inaction", Edward Herman (who was an occasional co-author of Chomsky's) wrote a ferocious response to him, calling Power a member of the "cruise missile left" and accusing her of ignoring genocides and other atrocities that the US had not merely been indifferent to, but had actively condoned, supported or carried out.

While it is true that the Vietnam War did not get much attention, Power does acknowledge that the US bombing of Cambodia helped to lead to the rise of the Khmer Rouge. And, contrary to Herman's assertion, the US-backed Indonesian genocide of 1965-66 does get a mention, albeit a brief one. That said, it is true that there is no mention of the genocide committed in Guatemala, backed by the US, while the genocide in East Timor (again, condoned by the US) is only briefly mentioned by Power.

In other words, those on the Chomskyite left bitterly complain that Power focuses on genocides committed by "them", but not by "us". Or, to put it another way, Power focuses on the US Government's sins of omission as opposed to their sins of commission. Despite this, around the time of this book's publication, Power did talk of "crimes committed, sponsored or permitted by the United States". Moreover, those who identify as members of the "anti-imperialist" left do the exact opposite to what they accuse Power of doing. As she writes in the aforementioned 2004 review: "For Chomsky, the world is divided into oppressor and oppressed. America, the prime oppressor, can do no right, while the sins of those categorized as oppressed receive scant mention."

In my submission, we can bypass this debate by acknowledging that both Power and Chomsky have something to offer citizens of Western countries who support a humane and ethical foreign policy that is less beholden to economic, strategic and special interests. In some cases, this may require military intervention. In others, it may not. A Problem From Hell is not the final word on how US foreign policy should be conducted, but it is an extremely valuable contribution to the debate, and should be judged on its own merits; neither its supposed omissions nor Power's actions in her subsequent career at the heart of the US Government are valid reasons to dimiss the book as it stands. ...more

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Aug 01, 2013 Lightreads rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, nonfiction

Grinding, grueling, exhausting account of a series of genocides and the United States's response – or generally lack thereof.

Other people have criticized this book at length for failing to address the ways the United States was actively complicit in genocidal violence through support of its perpetrators. The criticism is accurate, though I think it's a product of the focus of this book very specifically on passive complicity.

I had read excerpts of this over the years, and I'm glad I finally sat ...more

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Jun 27, 2017 Chris Walker rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: us-history-politics

Actually more like a 4.5, but I rounded up because it's a book I think that many people (but especially Americans) should read.

It's been a long time since I've read such a well constructed, well argued, and thoroughly damning analysis of US foreign policy. Samantha Power lays out an accessible, data-rich take on the history of genocide in the 20th-century, focused on American foreign policy decisions, or more frequently the lack thereof. The book is structured chronologically, beginning with the Actually more like a 4.5, but I rounded up because it's a book I think that many people (but especially Americans) should read.

It's been a long time since I've read such a well constructed, well argued, and thoroughly damning analysis of US foreign policy. Samantha Power lays out an accessible, data-rich take on the history of genocide in the 20th-century, focused on American foreign policy decisions, or more frequently the lack thereof. The book is structured chronologically, beginning with the Armenian genocide, progressing through the Holocaust and Raphael Lemkin's creation of the word "genocide" and his tireless work to get the United Nations to pass a convention on genocide, then through the genocides of the Cambodians, Kurdish, Bosnian muslims, Rwandans, and Kosovar Albanians. With the exception of the chapter on the Armenians, which is unfortunately brief, Power breaks down the historical events, and specifically the stages of American reaction to them. She does an excellent job of not lumping together these different situations into one simplistic series of cause and effect. Rather she takes into account the various historical and cultural complexities, and how they combined to produce similar inaction on the part of the US. Her overall thesis is that America's continuous inaction in the face of genocide is not a failure of their foreign policy strategy, but rather the way it is intended to work. She also doesn't lay out a simplistic hindsight vision that the US would have absolutely been able to prevent genocide in every case, but she does argue that the calculations policymakers took into account had little to do with that possibility one way or the other. And when they were doubtful about whether or not they could have affected things positively, it often had more to do with a desire to stay uninvolved, rather than an honest analysis of the situation.

Rather than try to explain in a paragraph what Power's lays out in 500+ pages, I'll leave you a particularly blunt and straightforward quote from her conclusion:

The real reason the United States did not do what it could and should have done to stop genocide was not a lack of knowledge or influence but a lack of will. Simply put, American leaders did not act because they did not want to. They believed that genocide was wrong, but they were not prepared to invest the military, financial, diplomatic, or domestic political capital needed to stop it. The U.S. policies crafted in response to each case of genocide examined in this book were not the accidental products of neglect. They were concrete choices made by this country's most influential decisionmakers after unspoken and explicit weighing of costs and benefits

...more

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Jul 30, 2016 Ann rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This book does a good job of documenting some of the genocides in the 20th century but offers little insight into how they could have been prevented or how our current systems failed. There is larger missing problem which is never addressed in this book, which is how we can respond more quickly and positively in the future.

There is no examination of international law as it exists today, how it works and does not work. There is no mention of Russia and China's role on the security council and ho ...more

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Jul 06, 2020 Sugavanesh Balasubramanian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A seminal work with a lot of deep background and direct quotes.

"America's interests" - this term perversely presents itself all over the place where, "America is the vanguard of Liberty everywhere" should have been present. It is also explained well how much of this inaction had zero political consequences.

These are hard choices to make. Because there is no way to know in advance how it's going to turn out. But it doesn't mean no action is an option. - This is basically the gist of the message ...more

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Aug 06, 2008 Rebecca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone!

Every American should read this book twice! It is exceptionally well written, well researched, and unbelievably compelling. It explains the history of America's place in international law and polics from the Armenian genocide of WWI to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It tells the compelling personal stories of those involved on the international stage, and behind the scenes. This book is exceptionally well balanced. It neither praises nor villifies the United States. Rather, its purpose is to in ...more

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Jan 18, 2008 Kevin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Samantha Power's excellent history of American responses to genocide in the 20th-century is a very enlightening and very depressing story of moral failure. It follows the story of genocide from the slaughter of Armenians in 1915 through the Jewish Holocaust 30 years later, and on to the Khmer-Rouge sponsored killing fields in Cambodia in the late '70s, the mass murder of Iraqi Kurds by Saddam's government in the late '80s, the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides in the early and mid '90s and ending wi Samantha Power's excellent history of American responses to genocide in the 20th-century is a very enlightening and very depressing story of moral failure. It follows the story of genocide from the slaughter of Armenians in 1915 through the Jewish Holocaust 30 years later, and on to the Khmer-Rouge sponsored killing fields in Cambodia in the late '70s, the mass murder of Iraqi Kurds by Saddam's government in the late '80s, the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides in the early and mid '90s and ending with the massacre of Kosovar Albanians in the late '90s. In almost all cases, the American government sat on its ass and did virtually nothing, despite ample warnings of what was coming, alarm bells rung by observers and survivors about the crime in progress, and lackadaisical attempts to punish perpetrators in the aftermath.

This book is very well-documented and well-researched. It is also pretty depressing. We have put our faith in certain institutions of national and international government to keep the peace, and this book begs the question: when both the United States, and the international peace-keeping organization it helped create, the United Nations, fail to step in when men butcher hundreds of thousands or millions of each other like dogs, was our faith in these institutions well-placed?

The book exposes the litany of excuses that the US government and the UN trotted out for doing nothing, but it raises another question, not so much what could really be done to stop a genocide in progress, but what has to happen in the future to make genocide interdiction happen? What price must we pay to save the lives of our fellow men?

A friend of mine reccommended this book to me while I was doing research for an author who is writing about the feeble American response to the Holocaust going on in Nazi-occupied Europe. I saw with my own eyes State Department cables by the dozens full of excuses as to why we could nothing to rescue Jews from Nazi extermination. It struck me that one of the difficulties which governments have in making the decision to stop genocide is that the goal of governments in regards to the rest of the world is to further its own interests, not to further the interests of all mankind. This is precisely why the United Nations is so often paralyzed: because its individual member nations have a cacophony of clashing interests that rarely coincide.

This is a good thing to keep in mind when considering the problem of how to motivate governments to take steps to halt genocide.

I haven't finished reading it yet (I'm more than 3/4 through), but this is a good book well worth reading.

...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Regina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, human-rights, favorites, nonfiction, history

Genocide did not even exist as a term until Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish Polish lawyer and survivor of the Holocaust, invented the term after the close of World War II. Before that time, Churchill described it as a "crime with no name". The best that was offered was "barbarities" and "vandalisms" which lacked moral authority. It wasn't until 1948 that the UN was finally able to come up with a working definition of "genocide". Genocide was not entered into force as a UN Convention until 1951 and it w ...more

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Nov 28, 2008 Siria rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, current-affairs, nonfiction

Fascinating, passionate, and damning in equal measure, A Problem from Hell is an indictment against the prevailing attitudes in the USA (and much of the west) towards genocide throughout the twentieth century. From the Turkish massacres of the Armenians, through to the Serbian butchery in Kosovo, Power examines the ways in which American politicians have paid lip-service to opposing genocide, while failing to act for reasons of political expediency. As Power writes: "No US President has ever mad ...more

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Dec 18, 2019 Steve rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-non-fiction

A Problem from Hell is a magisterial yet approachable work on the history of the term "genocide", the creation and fight for ratification of a genocide convention at the United Nations, and the explanation and criticism of the subsequent responses to instances of genocide by the United States during the last quarter of the 20th Century. It is written by Samantha Power, a journalist at the time of writing who would go on to become President Obama's second Ambassador to the United Nations. It is a A Problem from Hell is a magisterial yet approachable work on the history of the term "genocide", the creation and fight for ratification of a genocide convention at the United Nations, and the explanation and criticism of the subsequent responses to instances of genocide by the United States during the last quarter of the 20th Century. It is written by Samantha Power, a journalist at the time of writing who would go on to become President Obama's second Ambassador to the United Nations. It is an exceptional book which should be read by anyone looking to better understand the history of genocide and the wider American response to it. I feel it is required reading for those wanting to better understand American policy at the end of the 20th Century.

Power starts out with presenting a history of how the idea of the term "genocide" came to be, beginning with the atrocities imposed on the Armenians by the Turks at the beginning of the century. We quickly see how the use of certain labels and terms for defining what happened would become controversial moving forward. We of course then progress into the Holocaust period and how the campaign for awareness of Hitler's intentions before the war were made and rebuffed, and the subsequent quest for justice during and after WWII. This leads us to an enlightening segment on Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who sought refuge in the US during the war and dedicated the rest of his life to creating the term "genocide" and writing and getting ratified a convention on the act by the member nations of the UN.

We get to see how Lemkin struggled to get the big powers to sign on to his convention, even after the horrors of the concentration camps were discovered and shocked the world. He worked tirelessly in the halls of power lobbying his case. The United States was one of his most difficult targets; it is difficult to make the most powerful country in the world at that time give up even a sliver of its own sovereignty, even for a cause as obviously just as this. Power does an excellent job presenting the arguments Lemkin makes and the US attempts to rebuff or avoid them.

Following the narrative of how the term comes to be, Power follows with a number of instances portraying how the United States, and at times the United Nations and the wider world, responded to subsequent occurrences of genocide with little to no action, and why. It is a fascinating story, policy- and history-wise. We begin with the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia (the US wanted NOTHING else to do with Southeast Asia at that point); Iraq and the 1987-88 gassing and cleansing of the Iraqi Kurds (well it's an internal matter, and the US sure wouldn't want to do anything to disrupt Iraq's war with Iran at that time); and next up is Bosnia and the beginning of the Yugoslav wars (eh, this is the UN's problem. It's them that can decide to do nothing about it).

Then we come to the Rwandan genocide in 1994. This part is particularly interesting because it depicts just how much the disastrous "Black Hawk Down" episode in Somalia in October of 1993 affected a US/UN policy of non-intervention moving forward. After Somali militias shot down two US helicopters searching for a warlord in broad daylight over the capital of Mogadishu, killing a number of American soldiers and leading to a photo being published worldwide of the corpse of an American serviceman being dragged naked through the streets by a mob, the US administration lost all appetite for any intervention in the affairs of an African state which might lead to violence and more American GIs being injured, killed or captured. Once the genocidal tempest exploded in Rwanda in April 1994, the UN actually DECREASED it's force there and the Americans refused to send in well-armed and well-trained troops to battle Rwanda citizens wielding clubs and machetes. The perpetrators were left to run wild, killing over 800,000 of their fellow citizens over 100 days. The slaughter was only stopped when a rebel army invaded from neighboring Uganda and captured Kigali, the Rwandan capital. The US administration was adamant about not shedding more US blood on African soil and losing face at home and on the world stage. And in the 1990s, as America went, so went the West.

Power next examines the response to the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995 in the midst of the Bosnian (Yugoslav) war. This particular massacre stood out because of the sheer size (7,000 men and boys over almost two weeks) and because the UN troops stations nearby did nothing to stop it. It shown a light on just how futile and toothless UN protection and peacekeeping efforts could be. Power finally tells the story of the invasion of Kosovo by the Serbs in 1999. The invading militias attempted to cleanse Kosovo of ethnic Albanians and other Muslims to be left for the minority Serb population. Finally, after issuing ultimatums and having them continuously broken, the US under the auspices of NATO sent bombers to attack Serb positions and halt the slaughter. It appears that some lessons were finally learned, far too late, not much better.

Power does an excellent job of laying out facts of each episode, through interviews with primary sources, documented government communications, media reports, etc. so that it doesn't appear that she is just heaping on the blame. She doesn't let her activist's passion seep into her journalistic ethos. The decisions made by those in power were excruciatingly difficult. But it is clear that this work highlights what can only be described as a collective disregard for the welfare and human rights of the meek and the forgotten, by those best situated to help them: the most powerful military entities on the planet. The lofty ideals and commitments to justice that these countries, in particular the US, espoused during the Cold War world were discarded, time and again, for fear of losing face or political standing. It seems like the decline of the United States' desire to be the "policemen of the world" began here.

Make no mistake, this is a tough book to read. Though Power focuses much of her time on policy and decision making, especially later in the book, she must set the stage with graphic reports of the atrocities being committed during each episode of genocide. I've actually studied genocide in the 20th Century for some time, especially the Khmer Rouge and Rwanda, and I was taken aback by some of the descriptions, especially of the Bosnian conflict. I can only imagine that for someone unfamiliar with genocide reporting that parts of this book will be difficult to get through.

However, if one wants to understand how events like mass slaughter and atrocity are allowed to happen in a post-WWII world, this book is absolutely invaluable. Power's journalism is exceptional, top-notch work from being on the ground during some of the conflicts to following up with sources involved years later. Take your time, work your way through it and find a better comprehension of how these episodes are allowed to happen, defined and ultimately dealt with. It helps you learn a lot about the world. ...more

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Jan 29, 2017 Vheissu rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, military-and-international-affairs

This book, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a classic and deserves its reputation. If Power's tone is just a bit too self-righteous for my tastes, her outrage at the world's anemic responses to modern genocides, and particularly those of the United States, is fully warranted by her exhaustive and heart-rending research.

Reading the book today, one necessarily muses about Power's own success in preventing contemporary genocides as U.S. ambassador to the UN, especially the war crimes and crimes against This book, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a classic and deserves its reputation. If Power's tone is just a bit too self-righteous for my tastes, her outrage at the world's anemic responses to modern genocides, and particularly those of the United States, is fully warranted by her exhaustive and heart-rending research.

Reading the book today, one necessarily muses about Power's own success in preventing contemporary genocides as U.S. ambassador to the UN, especially the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Russian and Syrian governments and their ISIS adversaries. While Ambassador Power has emphatically condemned the crimes committed in the Syrian civil war, her government did precious little to stop them, Obama's "red line" notwithstanding. Some have accused the Israelis of genocide by expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank (I am not one of those), but the accusation illustrates one of the problems in defeating this scourge: ambiguity of the term "genocide" itself. Acts of genocide need not reproduce the consequences of the Holocaust, but exactly what acts does it include? At what point do crimes like murder and rape cease being despicable felonies and become genocide? How are national leaders supposed to know?

The ambiguities of the UN Genocide Convention (formally the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) with regard to the legal elements of genocide and other matters are only some of the imponderables that the West generally, and the United States in particular, have used to justify inaction in deterring or stopping these acts. Indeed, Ms. Power reserves her most bitter criticisms for the U.S. government. The United States, she claims, "repeatedly allowed genocide" and "did almost nothing to deter the crime" (p. 504). "The real reason," she writes, that "the United States did not do what it could and should have done to stop genocide" was because American "leaders did not want to" (p. 508). The United States government was not heartless or itself genocidal, but rather was reluctant to expend the lives and treasure necessary to make a decisive difference, especially when there was little if any American public support for military action (p.509) and the facts on the ground were unclear. American leaders were cautious about even using the "g-word" for fears that it would galvanize public opinion into demanding rash military action, or that the government would be accused of exaggerating the problem in order to justify U.S. military imperialism.

Ms. Power also claims that American officials were reluctant to label a situation genocide because they believed that a finding of genocide "carried with it a legal and moral ... imperative to act" (p. 508). Genocide anywhere creates a moral imperative for states to act, but the legal obligations imposed on states by the Genocide Convention are a different matter. The Convention requires state parties to enact domestic laws prohibiting genocide, and to prosecute or extradite those individuals charged with this crime; the Convention does not, however, require or even permit a state party to apply military force unilaterally in order to prevent genocide in another country, notwithstanding the title of the convention itself. Article VIII of the Convention provides:

Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.

There simply is no international legal authority much less an obligation for states to prevent genocide committed by other states, even if perhaps there ought to be. The only political entity with the authority to interfere in the domestic affairs of another state, which is what the prevention of genocide amounts to, is the UN Security Council or, in some unique cases, the General Assembly. Any belief to the contrary by U.S. government attorneys simply demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of international law.

It was relatively easy for Ms. Power to criticize the U.S. government as a reporter. Things must seem a little different when one occupies the U.S. seat in the United Nations. What has Ms. Power learned about the problem of genocide from her days as an ambassador? I, for one, anxiously await her next book about her own role as a high-ranking U.S. official in a world where genocide remains too common and America has continued its pathetic response to this ongoing problem.
...more

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Jul 17, 2008 Huyen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history-politics-religion

so again, I'm sucked into a book that angers and saddens me. Samantha Power demonstrates that despite the lofty (but rhetorical) pledge "never again" after the Holocaust, the US gov and state leaders have never ever been willing to prevent or stop any genocide in the twentieth century. the systematic inaction and indifference of the US gov and the UN in the face of the plights of the Kurds, Cambodians, Tutsis, Kosovars and Bosnian Muslims are invariably characteristic when realpolitik remains th so again, I'm sucked into a book that angers and saddens me. Samantha Power demonstrates that despite the lofty (but rhetorical) pledge "never again" after the Holocaust, the US gov and state leaders have never ever been willing to prevent or stop any genocide in the twentieth century. the systematic inaction and indifference of the US gov and the UN in the face of the plights of the Kurds, Cambodians, Tutsis, Kosovars and Bosnian Muslims are invariably characteristic when realpolitik remains the lingua franca of Washington and all US presidents. It takes extraordinary individuals like Henry Maugenthau, Raphael Lemkin, Peter Galbraith, Bob Dole, McCloskey to push a polls-obsessed government into action. But apart from unusual supposed "success" story the belated bombing in Srebrenica in 1995 (3 years after Milosevic's vicious "ethnic cleansing" campaign started with more than 200,000 Muslims cherished in despair) and the hyper-cautious aerial bombings in Kosovo in 1999, America has largely sat on the sideline with all sorts of rationalizations of unspeakable inhumanity elsewhere. Not only indifferent like in the case of Rwanda, the US also indirectly supported genocidal regimes like Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge or Saddam. And when thousands of people died unnecessarily, policymakers busied themselves squabbling over if these genocidal acts constituted genocide and justified America's nonintervention by a future quagmire or jeopardy.
However, the most important point Samantha Power brings home to me is that as impossible as it sounds to deter these disasters, these bloodthirsty maniacs are also vulnerable and sensitive to reactions of the international community. It's the passivity and reluctance to act that embolden them to continue their killing spree. even the most symbolic gesture from world leaders can make a difference, but the truth is that those suckers REALLY DON'T FUCKING CARE or bother to condemn these assholes. Half-hearted efforts and fixation with casualties on "our" side often preclude bold actions necessary to provide safety for civilians or bring war criminals to justice. to be honest, the book gives me some hope, not in the remote possibility of humanity of monsters, but in the power of public opinion in urging their leaders to act to prevent massacre, like Clinton in 1995 and 1999.
But apart from all the very well-documented facts and info, there is one thing Power never mentions, China... ...more

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Feb 02, 2020 Tim Hoiland rated it it was amazing

Shelves: justice, politics, 2020, pulitzer

It won a Pulitzer for a reason.

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Jan 14, 2020 Ubah Khasimuddin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Very tough book to read but one I think everyone entering the United States Foreign Service should read. It really highlights America's lack of involvement in stopping genocide, which is nothing new. But what is depressing is when America hinders other communities from helping out, like not lifting the Arms Embargo so Bosnian Muslims could defend themselves.
Each chapter is well researched but Power writes in a way that isn't so academic that the average reader is bored or confused.
She chronicl ...more

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Jul 17, 2016 Erik Graff rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: citizens of the USA

Recommended to Erik by: no one

Shelves: political-social-science

I've been helping a friend clear out an old two-storey, five-car garage recently acquired by the condominium association she heads. Amongst various items ranging from sex toys to a truck engine were a number of books, this among them. I picked it up and read it not knowing that Samantha Power has gone on to become the U.S. representative to the United Nations. Back when she wrote it she was simply an academic with a background in journalism including work in the former Yugoslavia.

Power's experie ...more

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Feb 16, 2020 DavidA rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Several years ago, my wife and I visited the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. When we came across the aerial photographs taken of the concentration camps, we paused and thought: We knew…

Having enjoyed reading The Education of An Idealist, I picked up this book at a used book sale. Given the content, I knew it would be an emotionally difficult book to read. As a senior majoring in history at Kent State in the 1960s, we read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (a weighty book) i ...more

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Mar 29, 2012 Nebuchadnezzar rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, politics-and-political-philosophy

This book really consists of two parts. One is a documentation of the birth and evolution of the concept of "genocide" during the 20th century. Power's access to documentation and powerful players in international affairs gives her unique insight into the issue. The chapters on the Armenian genocide in Turkey are especially timely given the still ongoing denial of this historical atrocity.

However, this is all ultimately used in support of an insidious agenda dressed up in humanitarian language. ...more

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Jun 09, 2008 Jason rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Probably the best book I've ever read. ...more

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Dec 20, 2009 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: groups-of-people, leetle-boys, kind-of-depressing, crime-and-punishment

I tend to get really depressed in the winter, and this year I just thought well.... why not?

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Jul 21, 2015 Carrie Yang rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I’ve read this three times and it’s fresh and horrifying every time.

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Sep 13, 2013 Alex rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Your first reaction to seeing this title is probably “Alex, why on earth would I ever read a 500+ page nonfiction book about genocide? What a downer…” And you’re right. It is a downer. Published in 2002, Samantha Power, a former journalist, human rights activist, and Harvard professor, later a chief foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, and recently appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations -- this book focuses specifically on America’s responses to the genocides of the twentieth century ...more

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Feb 20, 2020 Anna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Daunting in its size and scope, but essential reading for understanding one of the most pressing humanitarian issues of this era.

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Aug 24, 2020 Maria rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book is very very heavy, but a good critique of the US and international involvement in humanitarian crises.

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Nov 08, 2009 Emily rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

In "Dress to Kill", Eddie Izzard says:

But there were other mass murderers that got away with it! Stalin killed many millions, died in his bed, well done there; Pol Pot killed 1.7 million Cambodians, died under house arrest at age 72, well done indeed! And the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people, and we're sort of fine with that. ... Hitler killed people next door... “Oh... stupid man!” After a couple of years, we won't stand for that, will we?

I thought of In "Dress to Kill", Eddie Izzard says:

But there were other mass murderers that got away with it! Stalin killed many millions, died in his bed, well done there; Pol Pot killed 1.7 million Cambodians, died under house arrest at age 72, well done indeed! And the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people, and we're sort of fine with that. ... Hitler killed people next door... “Oh... stupid man!” After a couple of years, we won't stand for that, will we?

I thought of this line often while I was reading "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide because Izzard in his own way really nails the sad conclusion that you come to reading Power's book, which is that it's hard to get people to care about genocides, and, even if you do succeed in that, by the time you've proven your case, it's too late for many victims. Power analyzes the lackluster response of the United States to several post-WWII genocides, and concludes that our current system functions properly according to its own flawed purpose.

That goal is to involve the U.S. only when its own interests are threatened--or even to stand deliberately aside when the perpetrators of a genocide are the enemies of an opponent (the genocidal enemies of our enemies are our friends?). For example, Power shows how Iraq's stance against Iran prevented the U.S. from intervening when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds.

Power explains the history of the term "genocide" and how it grew up in the aftermath of the Holocaust; although that event inspired interest in and commitment to stopping genocide, it also gave people a very specific idea of what qualified as genocide. When later events didn't "measure up" to the Holocaust in terms of the percentage of the population killed or the means used (killing versus sterilization, for example), observers got tangled up in terminology and excused themselves from decisive action.

Before reading this book, I was familiar with Power's ideas from her articles in The Atlantic Monthly and elsewhere. I'm making the odd choice to give a Pulitzer Prize-winning and very well-reviewed book a not very good rating (for those who actually put any stock in my ratings...). The reason is that I felt this book was poorly edited: with the main text clocking in at over 500 pages, Power had a hard time strongly pulling her themes together under the weight of so much documentation and detail. I think that any nonexpert who isn't trying to marshal these specific facts would get her message better from one of her articles.

And the message isn't a very happy one. Indeed, when you consider the forces that Power describes, it seems even less likely to me that the U.S. would intervene in, say, Darfur, than it did before. The book is a history more t ...more

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About Samantha Power

Samantha Power

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Samantha Power is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, writer, and academic. She is affiliated with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School, holding the position of Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy.

A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, she moved to the United States from Ireland at the age of nine. From 1 ...more

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“The United Staes had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred,” — 4 likes

“People have explained U.S. failures to respond to specific genocides by claiming that the United States didn’t know what was happening, that it knew but didn’t care, or that regardless of what it knew, there was nothing useful to be done. I have found that in fact U.S. policymakers knew a great deal about the crimes being perpetrated. Some Americans cared and fought for action, making considerable personal and professional sacrifices. And the United States did have countless opportunities to mitigate and prevent slaughter. But time and again, decent men and women chose to look away. We have all been bystanders to genocide. The crucial question is why.” — 4 likes

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