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“A Problem from Hell”

America and the Age of Genocide

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By Samantha Power

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Dec 24, 2013
Page Count
656 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465061518

Price

$22.99

Price

$29.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $22.99 $29.99 CAD
  2. ebook $15.99 $20.99 CAD

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

From the New York Times bestselling author and former US Ambassador to the UN, an impassioned critique of America’s repeated failure to stop genocides around the world

“An angry, brilliant, fiercely useful, absolutely essential book.”—New Republic

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning interrogation of the last century of American history, Ambassador Samantha Power—former professor at the Harvard Kennedy School—asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow “never again” repeatedly fail to stop genocide? Drawing upon exclusive interviews with Washington’s top policy makers, access to declassified documents, and her own reporting from the modern killing fields, Power provides the answer in “A Problem from Hell,” a groundbreaking work that shows how decent Americans inside and outside the 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.

Genre:

  • Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Raphael Lemkin Award
  • “Magisterial.”
    New Yorker
  • “Forceful .... Power tells this long, sorry history with great clarity and vividness.”
    Washington Post
  • “Amazingly persuasive.”
    New York Review of Books
  • “Bracing .... Power [is] the new conscience of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment.”
    Time
  • “An angry, brilliant, fiercely useful, absolutely essential book.”
    The New Republic
  • “Disturbing ... engaging and well written ... will likely become the standard text on genocide prevention.”
    Foreign Affairs
  • “Anyone who wants to understand why America has permanently entered a new era in international relations must read ‘A Problem from Hell.’ … Vividly written and thoroughly researched.”
    Los Angeles Times
  • “[Power] asks us to consider what the obligations of a democratic world power, empire or no, should be …. A gripping work of historical analysis written with much care … that will move and outrage any reader.”
    Chicago Tribune
  • “Does a masterful job of conveying important, clear, and faultlessly non-hysterical information and interpretation on so many dark episodes in recent human history …. Power does not preach, and she does not pontificate. What she does, gently but insistently, is to prod.”
    San Francisco Chronicle
  • “The myriad horror stories of this age of genocide have many ugly characters, several of whom Power profiles in her well-written and extensively documented book.”
    The Nation
  • “Her book is one of those rare volumes that makes news, that is so original on a topic of such importance that it must be read …. Power is such a skillful author—she has produced a book brilliantly conceived, superbly researched, mixing passion and erudition—it must be placed in the ‘must read’ category for both misanthropes and lovers of humanity, for isolationists and internationalists alike.”
    Denver Post
  • “A towering history of the inadequacy of American responses to genocide …. The challenge is to make genocide real for the American public. Power’s own work is an important contribution to that effort, and deserves a wide reading.”
    American Prospect
  • “Samantha Power has written one of those rare books that will not only endure as an authoritative history but is a timely and important contribution to a critical policy debate.”
    Policy Review
  • “Makes important contributions to our understanding of today’s international turbulence and uncertainty …. Fascinating and disturbing.”
    London Review of Books
  • “Power’s critique of American policy is devastating and fully substantiated by the evidence she brings to bear.”
    Times Literary Supplement (UK)
  • “A superb piece of reporting which cumulatively grows into a major political work, part polemic, part moral philosophy … Power’s book makes a major contribution to that debate and is required reading for anyone inclined to take part.”
    Guardian (UK)
  • “Substantial and highly impressive.”
    Sunday Telegraph (UK)
  • “Makes important contributions to our understanding of today’s international turbulence and uncertainty …. Fascinating and disturbing.”
    London Review of Books
  • “The emotional force of Power’s argument is carried by moving, sometimes almost unbearable stories of the victims and survivors.”
    Publishers Weekly (starred review)
  • “A superb analysis of the US government’s evident unwillingness to intervene in ethnic slaughter.”
    Kirkus (starred review)

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Samantha Power

About the Author

Samantha Power, the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the William D. Zabel Professor of Practice in Human Rights at Harvard Law School, served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017 and was previously Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and the Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council.

She was the founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and is also the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir The Education of an Idealist and Sergio: One Man’s Fight to Save the World and the co-editor of The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World.

Power is a former Balkan war correspondent and a recipient of the National Magazine Award and the Pulitzer Prize, among numerous other honors. She has been named by Time as one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People and by Forbes as one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

Learn more about this author