A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

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

A shattering history of the last hundred years of genocidal war which won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction 2003.‘The United States has never in its history intervened to stop genocide and has in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred.’In this convincing and definitive interrogation of the last century of American history and foreign policy, Samantha Power draws upon declassified documents, private papers, unprecedented interviews and her own reporting from the modern killing fields to tell the story of American indifference and American courage in the face of man's inhumanity to man.Tackling the argument that successive US leaders were unaware of genocidal horrors as they were occurring – against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Kurds, Rwandans, Bosnians – Samantha Power seeks to establish precisely how much was known and when, and claims that much human misery and tragedy could readily have been averted. It is clear that the failure to intervene was usually caused not by ignorance or impotence, but by considered political inaction. Several heroic figures did work to oppose and expose ethnic cleansing as it took place, but the majority of American politicians chose always to do nothing, as did the American public: Power notes that ‘no US president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on.’ This riveting book makes a powerful case for why America, as both sole superpower and global citizen, must make such indifference a thing of the past.

“A Problem from Hell”

America and the Age of Genocide

Samantha Power

Awards and Accolades (#ulink_00b79100-66df-5ebf-9a07-26cc5478245a)

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction 2003

Winner of Robert F. Kennedy Book Award 2003

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Non-fiction

Winner of the National Magazine Award for her Atlantic Monthly article “Bystanders to Genocide”

Winner of the Raphael Lemkin Award (Institute for the Study of Genocide)

Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for the Best Book on American Political or Social Concern That Exemplifies Literary Grace and Commitment to Serious Research

Short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Best Book in Current Interest

Short-listed for the Arthur Ross Book Award for the Best Book in International Affairs (Council on Foreign Relations)

Short-listed for the Lionel Gelber Prize for the Best Book in International Relations (Munk Center for International Studies, Canada)

Winner of the National Magazine Award for her New Yorker article “Dying in Darfur”

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u54739cee-8b5d-5191-a6c5-b7a0b4ee26f2)

Title Page (#u301ee1e6-48a8-5dc0-b5ca-317544851860)

Awards and Accolades (#u5ac41ac0-21d3-5e1e-a13d-83ea869036e5)

Chapter 1 “Race Murder” (#u5ad8572d-c109-5ee9-826d-682d0817c73a)

Chapter 2 “A Crime Without a Name” (#u471bd156-e4e4-54eb-ab7c-ae50e099fdec)

Chapter 3 The Crime With a Name (#u10658ab5-2264-557a-a683-c88a1f084541)

Chapter 4 Lemkin’s Law (#ufbf1ac64-277c-52e0-8b4b-6bc7dd9c3868)

Chapter 5 “A Most Lethal Pair of Foes” (#u3787c133-a53b-5214-bf94-a956a3b3465d)

Chapter 6 Cambodia: “Helpless Giant” (#uae1cf326-6190-56ee-8bc1-9b702c9d94a6)

Chapter 7 Speaking Loudly and Looking for a Stick (#uc7b7b922-eca9-599e-9760-a97893eafa59)

Chapter 8 Iraq: “Human Rights and Chemical Weapons Use Aside” (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 Bosnia: “No More than Witnesses at a Funeral” (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 Rwanda: “Mostly in a Listening Mode” (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 Srebrenica:“Getting Creamed” (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 Kosovo: A Dog and a Fight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 Lemkin’s Courtroom Legacy (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 Conclusion (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

P.S. (#litres_trial_promo)

About the author (#litres_trial_promo)

Author Biography (#litres_trial_promo)

About the book (#litres_trial_promo)

A Conversation with Samantha Power (#litres_trial_promo)

Read on (#litres_trial_promo)

The Void: Why the Movement Needs Help (#litres_trial_promo)

“Why Can’t We?” – A Commencement Address (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)