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jameshendrickson's review against another edition
5.0
Moving, eye-opening, & powerful
I would never expect a book on genocide to be riveting AND powerfully convicting. Reading this after Ms. Power was UN Ambassador is even more impressive because she was willing to take a job to prevent the next wave of atrocities (or risk public hypocrisy if she failed to do so) after writing a book so damning of the inaction of her predecessors. I highly recommend this book to gain a better understanding of the horror that can occur when Americans take an isolationist view of the world.
I would never expect a book on genocide to be riveting AND powerfully convicting. Reading this after Ms. Power was UN Ambassador is even more impressive because she was willing to take a job to prevent the next wave of atrocities (or risk public hypocrisy if she failed to do so) after writing a book so damning of the inaction of her predecessors. I highly recommend this book to gain a better understanding of the horror that can occur when Americans take an isolationist view of the world.
regferk's review against another edition
5.0
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 would be 40 more years before it would be ratified ("with reservations") by the United States.
The twentieth century saw many genocides stack up before there was ever a single person brought to account: Pol-Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Hussein's use of chemical weapon's against the Kurds, Bosnia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Kosovo. The notion that the US could not intervene due to an inability to effect change, the possible risks, or the lack of political will are shown to be grossly inaccurate. Not only is there a moral imperative to face genocide up front but the facts tend to show that appeasing genocidal leaders only leads to more genocide. One genocide leads to another. The victimized populations lead to revenge and greater use of violence and become havens for terrorist organizations.
I wish I could have read an updated version. Written over a decade ago, A Problem From Hell is still incredibly instructive and holds many lessons for future foreign policy in regards to genocide. Since the book was written, there has been the first warrant for a sitting Head-of-State, Omar al-Bashir in Darfur.
The twentieth century saw many genocides stack up before there was ever a single person brought to account: Pol-Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Hussein's use of chemical weapon's against the Kurds, Bosnia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Kosovo. The notion that the US could not intervene due to an inability to effect change, the possible risks, or the lack of political will are shown to be grossly inaccurate. Not only is there a moral imperative to face genocide up front but the facts tend to show that appeasing genocidal leaders only leads to more genocide. One genocide leads to another. The victimized populations lead to revenge and greater use of violence and become havens for terrorist organizations.
I wish I could have read an updated version. Written over a decade ago, A Problem From Hell is still incredibly instructive and holds many lessons for future foreign policy in regards to genocide. Since the book was written, there has been the first warrant for a sitting Head-of-State, Omar al-Bashir in Darfur.
clare_the_reader's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
nicholas_ryan's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced
4.5
Content 2
Enjoyment 1.75
Style 0.75
Enjoyment 1.75
Style 0.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide
mariefleurie's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
ka_cam's review against another edition
4.0
An engaging overview. I would have liked more in-depth critique of US interventionism more broadly, including when cloaked in ‘humanitarian’ language, and the relationship between US interventions and genocides beyond ‘not intervine=bad.’
walkerct's review against another edition
5.0
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:
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
jsilber42's review against another edition
5.0
A Problem from Hell is a very powerful and informative book that gives an overview of America's responses (or lack thereof) to genocide in the 20th century. It asks the question: why has the U.S. failed to act to stop (or attempt to stop) genocides from happening? To answer this question, the author analyzes the American reaction to six different genocides (Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Iraq/Kurds, Rwanda, and Serbia/Bosnia/Kosovo) to examine what we knew, what we did, and why, and see what sorts of patterns emerge. Her sad but realistic conclusion is that a lack of political/moral "will" to act combine with a self-serving political calculus (intervening carries much greater political risk than failure to act) mean that barring changes, we are very unlikely to act to prevent genocide now or in the future.
A Problem from Hell proceeds roughly chronologically, starting with the Armenian genocide in Turkey during WWI, and ending with the UN intervention in Kosovo. Along with the genocide "case studies", Samantha Power covers the efforts of Raphael Lemkin, coiner of the term, to get the world to adopt a ban on genocide as international law. While remaining tasteful and fairly restrained, the book does present atrocities to convey the horror of events, so it can be (and should be!) disturbing.
While I believe the book accomplishes its goals very well, it is far from perfect. It does a relatively poor job at filling in the reader on background history and context for several of the genocides (particularly Serbia/Yugoslavia) - depending on your familiarity with 20th century history and your willingness to do a little bit of research, this may or may not be an issue for you. On the flip side, it sometimes get bogged down in more detail than is necessary to get the point across, so pacing can be a problem. The biggest legitimate criticism of the book, I think, is that Power fails to give due coverage to arguments against intervention. She does acknowledge them, but she doesn't really concede much validity to them. And finally, you make take issue with events not covered - Stalinist and Maoist crackdowns are not mentioned, for example. Whether they failed to meet the definition of genocide or whether they were cut for other reasons, I'm not sure.
Overall, I think this is a very powerful and fascinating book and well worth your time.
A Problem from Hell proceeds roughly chronologically, starting with the Armenian genocide in Turkey during WWI, and ending with the UN intervention in Kosovo. Along with the genocide "case studies", Samantha Power covers the efforts of Raphael Lemkin, coiner of the term, to get the world to adopt a ban on genocide as international law. While remaining tasteful and fairly restrained, the book does present atrocities to convey the horror of events, so it can be (and should be!) disturbing.
While I believe the book accomplishes its goals very well, it is far from perfect. It does a relatively poor job at filling in the reader on background history and context for several of the genocides (particularly Serbia/Yugoslavia) - depending on your familiarity with 20th century history and your willingness to do a little bit of research, this may or may not be an issue for you. On the flip side, it sometimes get bogged down in more detail than is necessary to get the point across, so pacing can be a problem. The biggest legitimate criticism of the book, I think, is that Power fails to give due coverage to arguments against intervention. She does acknowledge them, but she doesn't really concede much validity to them. And finally, you make take issue with events not covered - Stalinist and Maoist crackdowns are not mentioned, for example. Whether they failed to meet the definition of genocide or whether they were cut for other reasons, I'm not sure.
Overall, I think this is a very powerful and fascinating book and well worth your time.
librarianonparade's review against another edition
5.0
If there was ever a book I would make required reading for all heads of state and government leaders, this would be that book. Despite making much-vaunted claims of 'never again' when speaking of the Holocaust, Power shows that America and the West has indeed allowed genocide to occur, over and over again - in Iraq, in Bosnia, in Cambodia, in Rwanda. Only once has the West intervened to prevent genocide from occuring, in Kosovo, and then only largely because the world had already seen Milosevic commit genocide against the Muslims in Bosnia.
She argues that America repeatedly refuses to intervene unless the situation becomes politically untenable in not doing so. If American interests are not threatened, America is not interested - despite its moral repugnance at the acts occuring. America repeats ducks its responsibilities by arguing that there is no consensus to act, no movement from its European allies, no pressure on the home front - but should a government with the power to prevent a genocide from taking place wait until its hand is forced by outside intervention?
Power doesn't solely attribute blame to the U.S., but she is quite adamant that when a country positions itself as the leader of the free world, it is expected to, well, lead. And it's hard to argue with her, when this powerful, angry book shows time and again that American governmental officials have sat back and allowed genocide to happen. So much for 'never again'.
She argues that America repeatedly refuses to intervene unless the situation becomes politically untenable in not doing so. If American interests are not threatened, America is not interested - despite its moral repugnance at the acts occuring. America repeats ducks its responsibilities by arguing that there is no consensus to act, no movement from its European allies, no pressure on the home front - but should a government with the power to prevent a genocide from taking place wait until its hand is forced by outside intervention?
Power doesn't solely attribute blame to the U.S., but she is quite adamant that when a country positions itself as the leader of the free world, it is expected to, well, lead. And it's hard to argue with her, when this powerful, angry book shows time and again that American governmental officials have sat back and allowed genocide to happen. So much for 'never again'.