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Samantha Power

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

by Samantha Power (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 897 ratings

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From former UN Ambassador and author of the New York Times bestseller The Education of an Idealist Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on America's repeated failure to stop genocides around the world

In her prizewinning examination of the last century of American history, Samantha Power asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide?

Power, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations, draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policymakers, thousands of declassified documents, and her own reporting from modern killing fields to provide the answer. "A Problem from Hell" shows how decent Americans inside and outside government refused to get involved despite chilling warnings, and tells the stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and lives in an effort to get the United States to act.

A modern classic and "an angry, brilliant, fiercely useful, absolutely essential book" (New Republic), "A Problem from Hell" has forever reshaped debates about American foreign policy.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
Winner of the Raphael Lemkin Award

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," she writes in this impressive book. Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past. --Shawn Carkonen

From Publishers Weekly

Power, a former journalist for U.S. News and World Report and the Economist and now the executive director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights, offers an uncompromising and disturbing examination of 20th-century acts of genocide and U.S responses to them. In clean, unadorned prose, Power revisits the Turkish genocide directed at Armenians in 1915-1916, the Holocaust, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Iraqi attacks on Kurdish populations, Rwanda, and Bosnian "ethnic cleansing," and in doing so, argues that U.S. intervention has been shamefully inadequate. The emotional force of Power's argument is carried by moving, sometimes almost unbearable stories of the victims and survivors of such brutality. Her analysis of U.S. politics what she casts as the State Department's unwritten rule that nonaction is better than action with a PR backlash; the Pentagon's unwillingness to see a moral imperative; an isolationist right; a suspicious left and a population unconcerned with distant nations aims to show how ingrained inertia is, even as she argues that the U.S. must reevaluate the principles it applies to foreign policy choices. In the face of firsthand accounts of genocide, invocations of geopolitical considerations and studied and repeated refusals to accept the reality of genocidal campaigns simply fail to convince, she insists. But Power also sees signs that the fight against genocide has made progress. Prominent among those who made a difference are Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who invented the word genocide and who lobbied the U.N. to make genocide the subject of an international treaty, and Senator William Proxmire, who for 19 years spoke every day on the floor of the U.S. Senate to urge the U.S. to ratify the U.N. treaty inspired by Lemkin's work. This is a well-researched and powerful study that is both a history and a call to action. Photos.

From The New Yorker

In the wake of the Holocaust, United States policymakers have been rhetorically committed to the idea of preventing genocide, and yet they have consistently failed to back up their words with actions. Although Power begins her magisterial chronicle of failure with the Turkish extermination of the Armenians during the First World War, she concentrates on America's recent reluctance to intervene in the mass slaughter of civilians in Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda. She argues that had the U.S. done so—particularly in Bosnia and Rwanda—it could have averted the murder of tens or hundreds of thousands; instead, geopolitical considerations, indifference, and worries over domestic support trumped American ideals. Though clearly imbued with a sense of outrage, Power is judicious in her portraits of those who opposed intervention, and keenly aware of the perils and costs of military action. Her indictment of U.S. policy is therefore all the more damning.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Review

“Magisterial.” (The New Yorker )

“The emotional force of Power’s argument is carried by moving, sometimes almost unbearable stories of the victims and survivors.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

“[Power] is one of the most striking talents to emerge in the human rights field in a long time.” (Aryeh Neier, founder of Human Rights Watch )

“Disturbing...engaging and well written…will likely become the standard text on genocide prevention.” (Foreign Affairs )

“Forceful… Power tells this long, sorry history with great clarity and vividness.” (Washington Post )

“Bracing...Power [is] the new conscience of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment.” (Time magazine )

“A history of our country that has never before been told... it should change the way we see America..” (Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II )

“This is a moving account of how millions of lives were lost.” (Former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) )

“[A Problem From Hell] challenges our conscience and should influence what we do in the future.’’ (Lawrence H. Summers, President, Harvard University )

“Power writes with an admirable mix of erudition and passion... focuses fiercely on the human costs of indifference and passivity....” (Stanley Hoffmann, Buttenwieser University Professor, Harvard University )

“One of those rare books that can change one’s thinking...very painful reading, but it has to be read.’’ (Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke )

“An angry, brilliant, fiercely useful, absolutely essential book.” (The New Republic )

“Compelling…Power leads her readers on a long and often gut-wrenching journey…. Power’s book raises vital questions.” (Reason )

“Avoids partisan finger-pointing [and] is a clarion call for America to remain an engaged moral power.” (Weekly Standard )

“A superb analysis of the US government’s evident unwillingness to intervene in ethnic slaughter…” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review) )

“Brilliantly conceived, superbly researched, mixing passion and erudition--it must be placed in the ‘must read’ category.” (Denver Post )

“Agonizingly persuasive.” (New York Review of Books )

“Groundbreaking... Power elegantly makes her case.” (Newark Star Ledger )

“A damning indictment of American passivity in the face of some of history’s worse crimes. (Newsweek International )

“A serious and compelling work... should be read by policy makers everywhere.” (Paul M. Kennedy, Dilworth Professor of History and Director, International Security Studies, Yale University )

“Samantha Power has written one of those rare books that is truly as important as its subject.” (Philip Gourevitch, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda )

About the Author

Samantha Power founded the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, and is now a faculty affiliate. From 1993 to 1996 she covered the wars in Yugoslavia as a reporter for US News and the Economist. A native of Ireland, she moved to the US in 1979 at the age of nine, and graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School.

Joyce Bean is an Audie Award winner, and has four Audie Finalist medallions to her credit. She has also won multiple Earphone Awards as well as a Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award. Joyce has worked as a television news producer, writer, actor, and audiobook director as well as voice talent. She lives in West Michigan.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00D7MSXQQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; Reprint edition (May 14, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 14, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5463 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 861 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #326,060 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #102 in National & International Security (Kindle Store)
- #205 in International Relations (Kindle Store)
- #226 in Human Rights Law (Books)

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Samantha Power

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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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SR

Clearly Deserving of its Pulitzer

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2011

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This book essentially asks one question: should political considerations be divorced from or an inherent part of the consideration as to whether the United States should intervene into a foreign genocide?

Power, a highly regarded scholar in this field, has compiled a stellar detailing of the genocides of the 20th century. This book is remarkably in-depth as to its scope, and is a perfect introduction into the grisly field of genocide studies. Power details the battles of Raphael Lemkin to get the word "genocide" introduced into common parlance. She then moves to detail the ratification of the genocide convention by the United Nations and the subsequent refusal of the United States to sign it, despite previous genocides (also discussed) in Turkey during WWI and, of course, Nazi Germany during WWII.

Let me be clear. This is NOT a book about the Holocaust. We have all heard the chilling tales and the despicable actions committed during this period. Power does detail the Holocaust in some respects, but she does so more to explain its place historically as a basis for future genocide considerations. Essentially, then, this book does the following: Power details the establishment of the word "genocide" and the historical context for the term. Then, she details the first case of modern genocide during Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia, followed by the genocide of Saddam Hussein against his own people in Iraq. The plight of the Kurds and Cambodians is discussed as relating to this historical context. In this respect, it is crucial to note that the subsequent assertion that Hussein committed genocide set the standard that one did not need to move beyond one's own country's boundaries to commit the atrocity. Following, Power engages in discussion of the genocides in the Balkans (Yugoslavia, Kosovo, etc.) and, of course, Rwanda.

What is chilling is that the international community continues to determine whether intervening in a genocide is worth the political capital expended in the effort. Power seeks to remedy this question, asserting not only that genocide should be stopped because it is the morally right thing to do, but also because it provides clear political capital benefits. This book is a chilling introduction to a grisly subject written by a master.

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Gracie

interesting read

Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2023

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I’m a university freshman and I bought this for my “responding to atrocities” class. the reading was genuinely interesting. even after completing the assigned chapters, i had the urge to keep going because it is written in an understandable yet impactful manner

3 people found this helpful

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S.

An Important Read from the new US Ambassador to the UN

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2013

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Certainly a groundbreaking and seminal work in genocide policy work, even read over a decade after its release.

The book gives you a primer in the history of international law, then spends the bulk of the text on a series of case study-esque sections on genocides in the last 100 years, including both international and domestic American factors that led to the United States failing to take effective action in most cases.

It's obvious that Bosnia and Kosovo are the two conflicts Power feels closest to, which isn't surprising because she worked as a reporter there in the early 1990s at the height of the genocide. Those sections are written both succinctly and passionately, and do an excellent job of communicating both the scope of what was happening on the ground and the complex machinations within the United States that caused U.S. inaction.

However, other sections of the book weren't as scintillating. Sometimes, I feel like important information is introduced as an afterthought--in the Rwanda chapter, Madeline Albright, who Power cites as "the most outspoken figure within the Clinton administration for intervention" is referenced only in a small paragraph. In the chapters on Cambodia and Armenia, the facts presented lacked a consistent thread of analysis to tie them all to their policy outcomes. Also, there were enough punctuation errors that I at times found them distracting from the reading, though I was reading from a first edition.

On the whole, the book is well-written, has several brilliant conclusions drawn from the information it presents, and remains as relevant in 2013 as it was in 2002.

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Leilur

Great Read

Reviewed in Canada on July 31, 2017

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Really great book if you're into the subject matter. It reads easily and I learned a lot. It was actually a textbook for one of my university courses. We were only required to read a few chapters but it was so interesting I read the rest of it on my own time after I finished the class. It shipped quickly, I ordered it while in my first class of the semester and it came before I had that class again the next week, with enough time to get the first reading done as well.

wazbud

Well researched but unconvincing

Reviewed in Australia on June 17, 2014

Verified Purchase

Genocide is as old as humanity. Americans are no more guilty than the Romans. I found the analysis repetitive and unconvincing.

œ

"Ein Problem aus der Hölle" - ein erschütternder Bericht - mit dem Pulitzer Preis ausgezeichnet

Reviewed in Germany on October 2, 2008

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Dieses Buch ist ein Denkmal für die vergessenen Helden im Kampf gegen den Genozid, ebenso wie eine Chronik der Ereignisse an zu vielen Orten unserer und vergangener Zeiten. Man möge mir die Länge der Rezension vergeben, aber dieses Buch war aufwühlend und erschütternd. Die Rezension fällt diesmal etwas ausführlicher aus.

Am 14. März 1921 tötete ein vierundzwanzigjähriger Armenier namens Soghomon Tehlirian in Berlin Charlottenburg den ehemaligen türkischen Innenminister Talaat Pasha, welcher in 1915 für den Tod von fast einer Million Armeniern verantwortlich war. Der damalige amerikanische Botschafter am Bosporus Henry Morgenthau Sr. versuchte vergeblich seinen Einfluss in Washington geltend zu machen, um das Massaker zu unterbinden. Als die Vereinigten Staaten im April 1917 Deutschland den Krieg erklärten, verweigerte Präsident Wilson eine ähnliche Kriegserklärung gegenüber dem Osmanischen Reich. Ja, er wollte noch nicht einmal die Beziehungen abbrechen. Wir gehen dorthin wohin uns die Notwendigkeiten tragen - so sprach Wilson zum Kongress (S. 13 gebundene Ausgabe). Das amerikanische Nicht-Handeln gegenüber dem stattfindenden Horror sollte sich wiederholen. Immer wieder zögerten die USA wenn es darum ging einzugreifen, auch wenn die Fakten bekannt waren.

Diese Buch wurde auf Basis zahlreicher Interviews erstellt. Quellen und Bibliografie sind am Ende abgedruckt. Sie belegen wieviel Politiker und Verantwortliche wirklich wussten. Sie belegen menschenverachtende Aussagen, Leid, welches durch Nicht-Eingreifen entstand. Nicht nur zu den Geschehnissen des 1. und 2. Weltkrieges, sondern bis in unsere Zeit hinein: Bosnien, Srebenica, Kosovo - um nur einige zu nennen. Samantha Power zeigt wie US-Bürger innerhalb und außerhalb der Regierung zur Seite sahen, als sie mit dem Leid der Flüchtlinge konfrontiert wurde. Wie sie versuchten sich einzureden, dass ein Eingreifen sinnlos sei. Die Dokumentation ist ergreifend. Samantha Power zitiert nicht nur die Verantwortlichen, sondern lässt auch die Opfer zu Wort kommen. Akribisch hat sie recherchiert. Vorurteilslos und sachlich reiht sie Fakten aneinander. Jeder muss selber daraus seine eigenen Schlüsse ziehen.

Während Tehlirian auf seinen Prozess wartete, studierte Raphael Lemkin - polnisch-jüdischer Herkunft - in Lemberg (Lwow) Sprachen. Als er von dem Tehlirian-Fall hörte, fragte er einen seiner Professoren: Es ist ein Verbrechen für Tehlirian einen Mann zu töten, aber es ist kein Verbrechen für seinen Unterdrücker mehr als eine Million Menschen zu töten? Dies ist inkonsequent (S. 17). Später sollte Lemkin noch in Heidelberg und nach Lwow zurückgekehrt dort Jura studieren, um Staatsanwalt in Polen zu werden. Bereits in 1929 begann er nebenbei an einem internationalen Gesetz zu arbeiten, welches die gezielte Zerstörung von ethnischen, nationalen und religiösen Gruppen verhindern sollte. Er präsentierte es seinen europäischen Kollegen 1933 in Madrid.

Sechs Tage nach dem Einmarsch der Wehrmacht in Polen verließ er Warschau, um seine Eltern und den Bruder aufzusuchen. Diese wollten aber nicht fliehen und so zog er alleine zunächst nach Schweden und dann weiter in die USA. Sein Leben aber widmete er nur dem einen Ziel, seine Botschaft zu verkünden, und zögerte auch nicht Präsident Roosevelt direkt anzusprechen. Jener versicherte Lemkin, er würde die Nazis verwarnen, ansonsten sei aber Geduld notwendig.

Im Jahr 1944 war es Lemkin, der den Begriff GENOZID erstmals prägte. Er beklagte aber weiterhin, dass seine Ansprechpartner in Behörden und Regierung nur höflich wären, und dass deren Aufmerksamkeit von anderen Dingen aufgesogen wurde. Dennoch gelang es ihm - nach der Teilnahme an den Nürnberger Prozessen - dass die Vereinten Nationen endlich am 9. Dezember 1948 die Konvention für die Verhinderung und die Bestrafung von Genoziden umsetzten (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genozid). Bis zur Ratifizierung in den USA sollte aber noch eine lange Zeit vergehen. Als Randbemerkung sei erwähnt, dass einen Tag später am 10.12.1948 die Menschenrechtserklärung festgestellt wurde - Lemkin sorgte sich darum, ob diese nicht seine Genozid-Konvention überschatten würde.

Lemkin selber wurde in 1950, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1956, 1958 und 1959 erfolglos für den Nobelpreis vorgeschlagen. Er starb verarmt am 28. August 1959 an einem Herzinfarkt. Zwei Tage später veröffentlichte die New York Times eine kurze Meldung zu seinem Tode, wonach Diplomaten dieser und anderer Organisationen sich Ausreden wegen dem andauernden Fehlschlag der Ratifizierung nicht mehr ausdenken müssten.

Ein anderer nahm sich des Themas an: William Proxmire. Als er - nach drei vergeblichen Versuchen Gouverneur von Wisconsin zu werden - endlich die Wahl in den amerikanischen Senat gewann, hielt er am 11. Januar 1967 seine erste Genozid-Rede und versprach von nun an täglich sich zu diesem Thema zu Wort zu melden bis zur Ratifizierung. Seine beste Quelle für die täglichen Ansprachen war die Tageszeitung: 1968 das nigerianische Vorgehen gegen den christlichen Ibo-Widerstand, 1971 der Tod von 1-2 Millionen Bengalen in Pakistan ... nie griff die US-Regierung ein.

Nach 19 Jahren und 3.211 Reden (S. 166) sowie schließlich auch der Unterstützung von Ronald Reagan war es in 1986 soweit: der amerikanische Senat stimmte zu. Aber erst in 1988 beendete der Kongress die Arbeiten am sogenannten Proxmire-Act (Genocide Convention Implementation Act). Der Durchbruch veränderte aber nichts an den politischen Realtitäten: US-Bürokraten wurden nur vorsichtiger in der Verwendung des Begriffes.

Für all die folgenden Genozide, die aufgeführt und ausführlich beschrieben werden, will ich nur einen Auszug im Zusammenhang mit Bosnien zitieren:

Senator Joseph Biden hatte zusammen mit Dole noch unter Präsident Bush Sr. ein Paket verabschiedet, um den belagerten Muslimen in Bosnien zu helfen. Nach einem Besuch im April in Sarajevo warf er der Clinton Regierung vor, Friedenswächter an einen Ort zu senden, wo sie nichts zu suchen hatten, und dies als Entschuldigung für Untätigkeit heranzuziehen. Im Mai 1993 entwarf daraufhin Clinton seine Lift-and-strike Politik und Außenminister Christopher wurde auf Europareise geschickt, um dies zu verkaufen: das Waffenembargo gegen die bosnischen Muslime sollte beendet werden, die Serben sollten bombardiert werden. Christopher betonte aber in Gesprächen mit NATO Generalsekretär Manfred Wörner (nach dessen Erinnerung) die Nachteile. Wörner erkannte, dass er dieses Vorgehen ablehnen sollte. Die lift-and-strike Politik wurde nach Rückkehr Christophers in die USA abgelehnt, stattdessen wurde eine Politik der safe-areas vereinbart. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, der UN-Generalsekretär verlangte 30.000 Mann zum Schutz dieser Zonen. Er bekam einen Bruchteil. Clinton nannte diese safe areas selber "shooting galleries". Das Problem war nicht gelöst. Es folgen Beschreibungen der Haltung von General Colin Powell, damals Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, weitere Reaktionen Clintons, etc. Von Aussenminister Christopher stammt der Satz "The hatred between all three groups ... is almost unbelievable. It's almost terrifying, and it's centuries old. That is really a problem from hell. And I think the United States is doing all we can to try to deal with that problem." (S. 306).

Im Vorwort beschreibt Power ein Spielplatz-Massaker der Serben in einer dieser safe areas. Insbesondere der Tod eines kleinen Mädchens, welches nach langer Zeit erstmals draussen spielen durfte wird erzählt. Schrecklich.

Das Ende des Buches ist den Bemühungen in Den Haag gewidmet, die Verantwortlichen gerichtlich zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen. Es wird beschrieben unter welchen Umständen Verhaftungen möglich waren und wie es zur Anklage kam.

Schlussbemerkung: In den USA war dieses Buch ein Erfolg. Der Rezensent bedauert, dass es nie übersetzt wurde. Es hätte auch in Deutschland ein größeres Publikum verdient.

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Lukas

Power !!!

Reviewed in Germany on February 5, 2021

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Sehr informativ und lesenswert.

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Dio Chung

Awesome experience, thank you.