... [an] important book, a superb piece of reporting which cumulatively grows into a major political work, part polemic, part moral philosophy ... Each case is examined in brutally exhaustive detail, almost defying the reader to proceed without a sense of collective guilt at the consequences of inaction, not just from the US, her central target, but among its supposedly civilised Western allies ... Amid her righteous anger, Power unwittingly allies herself with the neo-conservatives now calling the shots in Washington, with such apparent influence on our own moral crusader of a Prime Minister. Many of her arguments are uncomfortably unilateralist; she does not specifically say so, but they tend towards the kind of intervention which recently took place in Iraq, if too late and for all the wrong reasons ... Power's book makes a major contribution to that debate and is required reading for anyone inclined to take part.
Power expertly documents American passivity in the face of Turkey's Armenian genocide, the Khmer Rouge's systematic murder of more than a million Cambodians, the Iraqi regime's gassing of its Kurdish population, the Bosnian Serbian Army's butchery of unarmed Muslims and the Rwandan Hutu militias' slaughter of some 800,000 Tutsi. This vivid and gripping work of American history doubles as a prosecutor's brief: time and again, Power recounts, although the United States had the knowledge and the means to stop genocide abroad, it has not acted ... Power gives us a Washington that is vibrant, complex and refreshingly human. Within it, she finds an unlikely, bipartisan collection of men and women whose courage and moral commitment she admires ... The same Washington, of course, is a place of defeatism, inertia, selfishness and cowardice.
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.
... agonizingly persuasive ... extremely important and highly readable ... Because it is a book primarily about the United States and genocide, other countries get off rather lightly. Power’s underlying assumption seems to be that only United State leadership could ensure successful action ... Power says little about improving the performance of international organizations. International will and international law are still weak and delicate, and there is no international mechanism for automatic action in cases of genocide.
... deeply researched and trenchantly argued ... One of the great strengths of this book is that it knows its own limitations ... a devastating indictment not just of the American foreign policy establishment but of the country’s entire political class, the media and even the wider public ... If there is a consolation to be drawn from A Problem from Hell it is that the book’s immense success in America, where it has been festooned with awards, including a coveted Pulitzer prize, might just suggest a sea-change in public attitudes.
... an uncompromising and disturbing examination of 20th-century acts of genocide and U.S responses to them ... clean, unadorned prose ... The emotional force of Power's argument is carried by moving, sometimes almost unbearable stories of the victims and survivors of such brutality ... a well-researched and powerful study that is both a history and a call to action.
... a superb analysis of the US government’s evident unwillingness to intervene in ethnic slaughter ... A well-reasoned argument for the moral necessity of halting genocide wherever it occurs, and an unpleasant reminder of our role in enabling it, however unwittingly.
