Rating: 
Summary: genocide schmenocide - and what about abortion?
Review: "When has America ever stopped a genocide?"Isn't this a rather nonsensical question? If America HAD stopped a genocide, how would anyone know? How does one prove that a genocide would have happened, but did not? Perhaps America stopped a thousand genocides by defeating Germany and Japan in WWII, or by building her very impressive and extremely frightening nuclear arsenal. Of course, this is a thought that would not occur to Miss Power, because in the end her thinking is utterly conventional and somewhat tiresome, though nevertheless guaranteed accolades from eastern-establishment academia, the Pulitzer people and the Charlie Rose show. What a bore, and what an accomplishment: to make "genocide" boring. And what is a genocide, anyway? To Miss Power and the left, it is mass killing that they don't like. Other mass killings - Stalin's purges (the so-called intellectual left will always be communist sympathizers and fellow travelers, I'm afraid) and legalized abortion to name just two - don't elicit any lamentations or graphic descriptions in the halls of Harvard. Sorry, but the hypocrisy makes all the trumped up moral outrage look very phony indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: An Awesome Work!
Review: This outstanding book was difficult to put down, and even more difficult to stop thinking about. Its topic was burdensome, sad, terribly unrelenting and tragic. Samantha Power's thorough research, well documented bibliography, and clean articulate writing style made the reading of such a depressing topic interesting and compelling. This book took me about a month of careful reading to complete and I highly recommend it. What disturbs me more than the topic of Ms. Power's book, however, is the lengthy and jumbled review below entitled "Scholarship from Hell." The reviewer is engaging in sophistry designed to discredit Ms. Power and mislead. Beginning with the phrase "Armenian Relocation" the reviewer spirals into ten, inarticulate, horribly written and confusing paragraphs whose sole intent is to misdirect and mislead. Notice the use of the phrase "Ottoman-Armenian Conflict" giving the impression of moral equivalence and balance. In paragraph three, he then attempts to discredit Ms. Power - and subsequently her book - by claiming she did not utilize "objective sources" and as having "...a lack of sufficient grounding in history to tackle a subject as sensitive and controversial as the Ottoman-Armenian conflict." There is nothing controversial or sensitive about the Armenian Genocide, and the careful construction of this babble, undermines Ms Power and devalues the awesome bulwark of research she has undertaken and produced, and is intended to mislead the reader by throwing as much junk at the wall as possible and hoping that some of it sticks. Despite the fact that Ms. Power's work is almost seven hundred pages long (with a bibliography as long as a short novel), the reviewer claims that she fails to refer to "objective scholars" in reference to the Armenian Genocide. References used by Ms Power include numerous newspaper and magazine articles published in 1915 when supposedly this "sensitive" and "controversial" "Ottoman-Armenian conflict" was at its height. The New York Times had very little doubt about what was occurring in Anatolia since in 1915 alone the Times published almost two hundred detailed articles - including dates, numbers of casualties, villages destroyed etc - about the slaughter of innocent Armenian men, women and children by the Ottoman Army. Ms Power also references Henry Morgenthau the United States Ambassador to Turkey during World War One. It is almost comical to read the lame attempt by the reviewer at discrediting an ambassador of the United States, and the ridiculous suggestion that if you really want to understand Ambassador Morgenthau's memoirs and his "interpretation" of the "controversy regarding the Ottoman-Armenian conflict" that a book by some offbeat writer gives more information than Morgenthau's own words. Apparently his idea of an objective source does not include the memoirs of a U.S. Ambassador - nor the army of diplomats British, French and American - who were strewn all over Anatolia and who wrote voluminous accounts of the well organized genocide.
Other trustworthy objective references made by Ms Power include memoirs written by American and European missionaries, references to memoirs written by Ambassador Viscount Bryce (British Ambassador to the US), the renowned British historian Christopher Walker, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Arnold Toynbee, etc. This is a stellar bibliography. In stark contrast the reviewer offers no contemporary sources for his claim that the Armenian Genocide is controversial, sensitive or can be categorized as merely a "conflict." . In addition the reviewer says nothing about all the other Genocides covered in the book and whether or not Ms. Power did a trustworthy job of covering them. Thus, presumably, Ms. Power had the "historical grounding" and sophistication to get everything else regarding all the other genocides in these seven hundred pages correct and properly documented except for the Armenian Genocide. Of course this begs the question, if she was sufficiently ungrounded to the point of getting the Armenian Genocide incorrect why should I believe anything that she has to say about the other genocides. And conversely, if her documentation is trustworthy about all the other genocides why should I not believe that she got everything correct and properly documented regarding the Armenian genocide? The point is Ms. Power got everything correct. Genocide scholars, Holocaust scholars and professors from around the world have hailed her book as a monumental benchmark. The goal of the reviewer is to put forth a carefully worded babbling denial that actually does more than simply deny, and does more than simply babble. The reviewer also seeks to blame the victim, and also shroud the events of 1915-1922 behind a scrim of supposed controversy where there is no controversy. The reviewer's goal is not even to re-write history, but rather to paint a situation that seems so hopelessly confused that one would need a doctorate to figure it out. The Armenian Genocide is neither "controversial" nor is it confusing, nor is it a "sensitive" issue (though I am sure it is a sensitive issue if your grandfather was one of the perpetrators of the crime) nor does one need a doctorate to understand it. The Armenian Genocide was a carefully planned genocide by Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha who used a well-trained Ottoman Army, to murder 1.5 million innocent men, women and children. It had nothing to do with World War One (except to the extent that the War was used as a cover,) it had nothing to do with the Russians, it had nothing to do with "relocation," it was all about hate, power, envy and jealousy - the Armenians were a peaceful people who had lived on their ancestral lands for 2,500 years. In "A Scholarship from Hell" the reviewer's careful rambling use of words attempts to sow confusion where none exists, and bring into question the credibility of Ms Power and her research methods, thus rendering anything she has to say irrelevant. Ms. Power has written an awesome, trustworthy account of Genocide in the 20th century. It is a heavy, time-consuming read, but it is also one of the best non-fiction books I have read in the last five years.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible piece of scholarship
Review: Many of the negative reviews of this book have either decried it for depicting the Armenian genocide or dismissed it as liberal hackery. Both of these objections are spurious. Power has duly researched the Armenian genocide and simply documented the American and international responses to it. Many of the objections actually try to implicate the Armenians as provoking the Turkish authorities into the genocide, while others deny anything took place at all. As for the charges of a liberal bias, absolutely none exists. And I wonder if anyone who alleges it has actually read the book. One reviewer actually calls Power a communist sympathizer for not reporting on Chinese and Russian atrocities. This absence is understandable when one looks at the fact that American legislators never missed an opportunity to wave moral superiority over Russian and Chinese communists. We almost always criticized them for that sort of the thing. Hell, one of the main reasons for the passage of the Helsinki convention was to be able to criticize the communists for failing to live up to its ratification. There is no liberal bias in this book. Power lauds Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole for making the Balkan genocides a campaign issue, even going so far as to buck the many dissenters in his party. Indeed, even Jesse Helms receives a paean for calling on the Clinton administration to apprehend war criminals. Clinton himself receives a hearty dose of criticism for his languid responses to genocide in Rwanda and the Balkans. This book is brilliant. Anyone curious about the heroes and villains of twentieth century genocide will be satisfied after reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful, readable, important
Review: As I was finishing this book, one thought that crossed my mind was that Ms. Power's family should be proud of her. To have done the necessary research and then, more importantly, to have written the story of genocide in the last century, to have faced down what must have been periodic visions of horror and gone on, is a feat most of us can only imagine. Ms. Power stands out as one of the heroes who are rarely recognized. I was pleased to note her special tribute to her parents after I had this thought. The book takes us from the Armenian massacres in 1915 through the Bosnian Serb massacres of Muslims in the 1990s, describing how each situation developed, how it was viewed by the world, what was done about the atrocities. There are hard facts, stories of bad decisions, details of massacres, rape, and destruction. What might otherwise have become a dry (yet horrifying) history book is lifted and made personal by the author's restrained yet compassionate style, and by her inclusion of the stories of the many individuals who worked to stop genocide over the years. The focus of the book is on the response of the United States to repeated instances of genocide in different parts of the world, and that response in the 20th century was consistent. The United States did nothing to stop genocide unless it was in our national interest to do so. And it rarely is. Oddly, although I feel shame and disgust with our leaders for choosing to do nothing in the face of indisputable information on massive slaughter, I also feel hope. Throughout the years a few people have stood up, have braved ridicule, loss of life, loss of careers, even loss of their mental stability, to speak for the invisible, the victims. These few individuals rose like bubbles to the surface again and again, were forced down and rose up, would not let go. It is because such persons have arisen, often from unlikely places, that I hold out hope for our future. I also take hope, although it may be premature, in the maturing of our society and its government. The analysis in this extraordinary work of the way decisions were made also suggests that there are alternatives. It is clear that when we have 1) no mandate for protecting innocent persons from slaughter and 2) no plan for dealing with genocidal regimes that we are going to be caught in a bind again and again, continually applying the lessons of "the last war" to the present one, and almost always choosing the wrong course. Our government relies heavily on public pressure and when that pressure doesn't materialize primarily because the public does not know what's going on, decisions are made that do not reflect the feelings of the majority of Americans. Again and again I read that "the public doesn't care because [the country] is too far away". We do care. We care when we know. There is now a far simpler solution to filling this gap than there has been in the past: the Internet. I have high hopes for its use to provide accurate information and gather support for actions against future Milosevics. The book is long and the information in it well-documented. There are 620 pages in the soft-cover edition, including a 17-page index and 80 pages of notes. Power used not only the extensive printed sources listed, but interviewed hundreds of persons. The result is readable, compelling, and for me difficult to put down.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for concerned citizens
Review: It seems that instances of genocide are increasing as the world becomes a global community. This excellent book undertakes several case studies of genocide and asks why the world's countries, and the US in particular does not respond to prevent such acts against humanity.
If you dont think this book is necessary, see the review by justreviewingit below which calls the Armenian genocide the "Armenian Relocation"; this reviewer is an apologist for Turkish genocide. Holocaust deniers come in all forms and must be confronted with their evil. This book will help you do that
when you hear " Pol Pot wasn't all that bad".
Rating:
Summary: What about the Indians?
Review: The Armenians are here, the Jews are here, the Rwandans are here. Who's missing? Oh, yeah - the Native inhabitants of North America, who were largely exterminated by the United States, who she now expects to save everyone else!
Rating: 
Summary: An amazingly well researched analysis.
Review: As many Pullitzer prize winning books often fall to high expectations, alas, there is one which does not. Samantha Power's amazingly well researched analysis of American (and worldly) foreign policy during times of genocide is a rare breed, in that it delivers to the level which any "gold star" book is expected to. Power, a highly qualified author for a book on a subject like genocide, obviously had great passion for the premise behind this book. Each argument she sets forth is backed up not only with hard evidence (which believe me, there is a bounty of), but also of her own experiences. Therefore, this book flows like a novel, but has the logicality of a textbook. The one area in which this book loses some points (and it is not a glaring problem, but forced me to give a 4, since 5 merits only near perfection), is that a few of Power's assertions (mostly in the chaper on Kosovo) are highly debatable. She begins to disregard the obstacles which the U.S. government faced. This disappointed me because her other assertions took into full-mind these problems. However, as I stated just one moment ago, ten of her eleven chapters are carefully thought out. In the end, I feel that anyone who wishes to offer an informed view of American foreign policy must read this book. It includes a wealth of information which proves Power's bold claims, and as a result does not leave much room for an equally respectable retort. Secondly, this book, like almost every Pullitzer Prize winner in the nonfiction category, is superbly written in stark and powerful prose.
Rating:
Summary: Scholarship from Hell
Review: The author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide", Samantha Power, is Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. This book deals with "genocide" in the 20th Century and the American reactions to "genocide". The author's stated primary purpose in writing this book is to sensitize both the US government and people at large about the disparity between the great power of America and its government's inadequacy in intervening to stop genocide wherever it is occurring. In order to explain the term of "genocide", its historical background and meaning, Power chose a number of case studies beginning with the Armenian Relocation, then the Holocaust, Bosnia, Cambodia, Iraq and Rwanda. We will focus our comments and critique on the first chapter of the book called "Race Murder" that deals with the Ottoman - Armenian conflict during the First World War. Although the author has a legal background it is immediately obvious that she does not have a sufficient grounding in history to tackle a subject as sensitive and controversial as the Ottoman - Armenian conflict, the Armenian revolutionary movements and subsequent relocation of 1915 and its historical interpretation. This point is highlighted by the fact that she begins her book in a totally out of context manner by lauding and praising an Armenian, Soghomon Tehlerian, who assassinated Talat Pasha, one of the leaders of the Ottoman Empire during First World War. The author's claim that the relocation of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire was "genocide" is presented as a fact and with very little research or clear evidence to prove this claim. Her bias continues as the chapter refers to no Turkish documents, nor to any objective scholars' and experts' books on this issue. For example, little to no reference can be found to the extensive work carried our by Professors Bernard Lewis, Stanford Shaw and Justin McCarthy. In addition, even though the foundations to her claims lies in a book by the former US Ambassador to Istanbul, Henry Morgenthau: "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story", she does not mention the critique of that book, "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" written by Heath W. Lowry. In his book, Lowry shows that there are many discrepancies between Morgenthau's book and his diary, letters and reports that were sent to the State Department. A number of crucial errors that need to be addressed can be found in the book. First of all, Power states that Talat Pasha ordered the roundup and execution of some 250 leading Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul. However, what she does not include is the fact that many of them were members of terrorist organizations and that their arrests came as a direct result of their attempts to provoke the Armenian populace to revolt and commit treason against the Ottoman Empire. Another claim of the author is that Sultan Abdulhamid II killed 200,000 Armenians in 1895 - 96. Once again these numbers are more akin to fiction than fact because Armenian organizations themselves, such as the British-based Anglo-Armenian Committee and Evangelical Alliance, put that figure at 20.000. Furthermore, these events occurred during mass rebellions by Armenians in Eastern Anatolia where many Muslims were also killed. The author also mentions that 1,5 million Armenians were killed during these events and the relocation process. However, demographic studies prove that prior to World War I, fewer than 1,5 million Armenians lived in the entire Ottoman Empire. Thus, allegations that more than 1.5 million Armenians from Eastern Anatolia died are false. Justin McCarthy's book "The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire" covers the whole era and proves beyond doubt that the Armenian population of the Empire as a whole did not exceed 1.3 million. Of this number, hundreds and thousands indeed left for other regions before and during World War I, especially to what was to become Armenia proper, according to estimates given even by Armenian sources, and those who reached their final destination of Ottoman Syria. The third claim in Power's book is an anecdote in Morgenthau's Story where Talat Pasha allegedly asks Ambassador Morgenthau whether the United States could get the New York Life Insurance Company and Equitable Life of New York, which for years had done business with the Armenians, to send a complete list of the Armenian policyholders to the Turkish authorities. "They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs," Talat Pasha said. "The Government is the beneficiary now." However, Lowry has shown that no such conservation took place and that the only time Morgenthau discussed with Talat Pasha these insurance firms was on April 3, 1915. Lowry qualifies this by pointing out that these kinds of conservations and crucial meetings between Morgenthau and Talat Pasha were always reported to the State Department, but that in this case it was not. Lowry goes on to say that there are no documents in the US archives about such a conservation having ever taken place. Lowry, also adds that while Morgenthau was writing his book he was assisted by two Armenian colleagues, his secretary, Hagop S. Andonian and the legal adviser of the US Embassy, Arshag K. Schmavonian. As the Ambassador spoke no Turkish, French or Armenian, and did not travel outside of Istanbul, it can be suspected that their contributions have exceeded mere assistance. The most significant omission made by Ms. Power is the well-documented massacre of defenceless Muslims (Turks, Kurds and other ethnic groups) by Armenians during the First World War. Mass graves of Muslims in Eastern Anatolia near towns such as Kars, Erzurum and Van, cities occupied by Armenian assisted Russian forces, are testimony of the carnage inflicted upon civilian populations by the alliance of Armenians and Russians. As it is well known, in 1919, the British High Commission in Istanbul, utilizing Armenian informants, arrested 144 high Ottoman officials and deported them to the island of Malta to be out on trial on charges of a premeditated attempt to harm Armenians. While the deportees were interned in Malta, the British appointed an Armenian scholar Mr. Haig Khazarian, to conduct a thorough examination of the Ottoman, British and the US archives to substantiate the charges. Though he was granted complete access to all records, Khazarian's corps of investigators discovered no evidence to demonstrate that Ottoman officials had either sanctioned or encouraged the killing of Armenians. After two years and four months of detention without trial, the British Procurator General exonerated and released all 144 detainees. The author indicates in her book that in 1919 the Ottoman Government set up a tribunal in Istanbul that convicted two senior district officials for crimes committed against the Armenians and she hence concludes that by this action Ottomans had accepted the veracity of the Armenian Genocide claim. However, as she mentions in her book, there were 320,000 British soldiers in Istanbul who were exerting pressure on the Ottoman Sultan and the Government to come up with results. The impartiality of such a court must be called into question. Yet, even if the proceedings of this Court were to be accepted it must noted for the record that those persons who did not take sufficient measures to save and assist Armenians during the relocation were convicted, but that the Court did not accept the allegation of a plan to murder Armenians. In conclusion, although the author has a legal background, she blatantly plays prosecutor, judge and jury without giving the defendant a right of defence. She sentences the Turkish side to the high crime of genocide by omitting any Turkish point of view or that of other scholars, who do not subscribe to the Armenian orthodoxy, as regurgitated by Power, on this controversial issue. If one is going to level the crime of "genocide" against a nation, this ought to done not by reaching out to by hand-picking "evidence" and "scholars" to prove a pre-accepted verdict, but by looking at all available evidence and scholarship with an open mind and deciding whether it supports such an accusation. The duty of a scholar is to find and preserve the truth. It should not be to help perpetuate hate by disseminating bias as fact and outright lies as truth
Rating:
Summary: America's (lack of) response to genocide
Review: While this book is far from perfect, it certainly is the most comprehensive examination of the issue of genocide that I have come across. It's also an extremely compelling condemnation of America's lack of will in responding to genocide when it occurs. Power begins with a look at the origins of the term "genocide." One of the many things I learned from this book is that the term is relatively young; in fact, it did not come into existence until after World War II, when a genocide survivor by the name of Raphael Lemkin introduced it into the English language. The story of Lemkin's life and his struggle to bring cases of genocide to the attention of American policymakers is one of the many inspiring, though frustrating, narratives in this book. After a useful overview of what genocide actually means, Power methodically takes us through cases of genocide in the 20th century. She gives six examples: the Armenians in Turkey in the 1920s, the Holocaust, the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Iraqi oppression of the Kurds, the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. For each she makes a solid argument for why these atrocities should be considered genocide. She also gives a systematic analysis of how the U.S. responded, or in many cases didn't respond. She argues that it was not for lack of knowledge, nor for lack of ability, but rather for lack of political will that America delayed taking action or refused to take any action at all. In Cambodia, the wounds from Vietnam were too fresh to justify another South East Asian military intervention. In Iraq, our hopes of maintaining a strong opponent to Iran in the Middle East prevented us from taking a hard line against Saddam in the 1980s. In Rwanda, our failures in Somalia still haunted us. And of course the underlying theme in all of these cases was that policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches of government consistently fell back on their belief that preventing genocide in faraway places was not of interest to the American people, and therefore was not good politics. Power is highly critical of U.S. policy, but to her credit she is critical consistently across the board. The book is non-partisan; she attacks the Reagan and Bush Administrations as much as she does the Clinton Administration. She also casts blame fairly evenly between the policymakers at the White House and State Department and the legislators in Congress. It is also important to note that she goes to great efforts to recognize those elected officials and career civil and foreign servants who went to great lengths to make the prevention of genocide a top foreign policy priority.
Rating:
Summary: Informative, but.............
Review: This book was meticulously researched and is an invaluble tool on the topic of modern day genocide. I find it being one of those books that I refer back to frequently rather than one I read and just let sit on the bookshelf for eternity. However, it was ironic that Iraq was among the situations covered. It would seem that the decision by the U.S. to invade and the resulting slogan-storm that ensued from the Left would explain a great deal about why U.S. officials are so hesitant to act in the first place. Why did she not address this issue directly? If Bush Sr. is guilty for food credits to Iraq and inaction in Bosnia (I would agree with the guilty charge on both accounts) then where would an abstentionist, neutralist Left weigh in on the scale of guilt? It seems obvious that a U.S. President is often faced with the no-win situation of not acting and facing blame by future generations or by acting and facing the wrath of people who, truthfully, have more of an interest promoting a quiet life for themselves at the expense of those being opressed. No? Our inaction towards the Kurds was damnable.....what was Europe's excuse? France...who helped the perpetrator build a nuclear reactor? I would love to see another book from this perspective, or to have had the author address these issues a bit more thoroughly. How would more action on behalf of the rest of the world have assisted in this worthy endeavor of stopping the horrible blood-baths that continue, and will continue, to pop-up around the globe? These are largely unanswered by being alluded to only as a passing comment. But I'm getting political aren't I? Oh, well, how can you not when approaching this topic? Anyway, buy the book and support this excellent effort at shedding light on not only our past inaction, but on how the lives of mothers, daughters, fathers and sons whose lives and dignity hinge, in the most direct of ways, on our acting in a more unified manner in the future.
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