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Overall Summary
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide is a nonfiction book written by Samantha Power. The book discusses how America failed to understand genocide in the 20th century, as well as why it happened. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2003 and was published by Basic Books in 2002. Power wrote this book after she had been teaching human rights practice at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for several years prior to that time. She has since become United States Ambassador to the United Nations, which makes her one of two women ever appointed to that position—the other being Madeleine Albright (who was also Secretary of State under Bill Clinton).
Throughout the book, Power considers various genocides around the world. She discusses how there was a lack of response in Iraq and Bosnia when needed. There were dedicated activists who helped develop international laws against genocide; however, it took many years before they had an effect.
Power mentions that, while there are laws to prevent genocide now, it took until the 1990s for any international court to try perpetrators. This is alarming because many of those criminals have not been caught yet and could be easily apprehended.
In “A Problem from Hell,” Samantha Power discusses the Armenian genocide of 1915. Despite knowing what was happening to Armenians at that time, countries like the United States did not intervene. The interior minister for Turkey, Mehmed Talaat Pasha, made no secret about targeting Christians before executing 250 Armenians in Constantinople. Armenians were then deported to camps in Syria and many died along the way.
Power then looks at Raphael Lemkin, who questions why Talaat is not held accountable for his actions. Lemkin was a lawyer who tried to speak about Hitler’s rise to power, but he was blocked from doing so.
Many people have made similar arguments and hoped for laws against mass atrocities, but they failed to get international support. Furthermore, when evidence about the Holocaust emerged after WWII ended, war crimes were prosecuted by the Allies at Nuremberg in 1945 and 1946. Only Nazis who attacked the state’s sovereignty were prosecuted by an international tribunal formed in 1945. However, no one was held accountable for committing horrible acts of violence until after WWII finished.
The Nuremberg trials were held in 1945 to prosecute Nazi leaders for war crimes. Raphael’s law was passed by the UN General Assembly, but it had not yet been ratified by 20 countries. The US failed to ratify the law and Power looks at how genocidal campaigns have continued since then. She connects war with genocide and notes that they are often linked together. Power explains why the United States has been reluctant to pass laws against genocide, which is connected with previous interferences in Cambodia and Vietnam
Power notes that attitudes toward the Holocaust were changing in the 1980s, and she believes it was because people realized how their lack of cooperation damaged America’s reputation.
In the late 1980s, Saddam Hussein begins his campaign against Kurds in Iraq and then Yugoslavia later. He starts executing them after that. Almost at the same time, Yugoslavia is divided into several smaller countries with minority populations fearing for their safety. Rwandan leaders are executed as well while Rwanda’s army tries to seize control over the country towards its end of war. And finally, thousands of Muslims were killed at the tail-end of Bosnia War which was one of the largest massacres since World War II ended. Power examines these events and their causes as well as why there was no international response to stop them from happening in these regions despite all this knowledge about them prior to or during some conflicts taking place there.
