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Book Summary and Reviews of A Problem from Hell by Samantha Power

A Problem from Hell by Samantha Power

A Problem from Hell

America and the Age of Genocide

by Samantha Power

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  • Published:
  • Feb 2002, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

In her award-winning interrogation of the last century of American history, Samantha Power -- a former Balkan war correspondent and founding executive director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy -- 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 newly declassified documents, and her own reporting from the modern killing fields, Power provides the answer in "A Problem from Hell" -- a groundbreaking work that tells the stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and lives in an effort to get the United States to act.

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Book Awards

  • award image Pulitzer Prize, 2003
  • award image National Book Critics Circle Awards, 2002

Reviews

Media Reviews

"This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past." - PW.

"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." - Kirkus Reviews.

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