Rating: 
Summary: Engaging, enraging...
Review: ...for a few reasons. First of all, this is an interesting read. Power's done a great service to public policy debates by fitting a complex issue into a readable yet not overly simplified package. There's no doubt, either, that she's done a good job of writing to provoke passions. The genocides of the 20th century--and the pathetic inaction of the outside world--are well described. That said, a couple of her basic assumptions--that the US should take the lead because the UN can't, and that the world can and should trust the US to do the right thing--are not particularly well-founded or well-argued. One gets the feeling Wolfowitz et al would be quite pleased to see someone else putting forward this argument for them. Indeed, these are odd positions coming from someone who also admits that the US routinely blocked action at the UN and that its motives are not always pure.
Rating: 
Summary: I have a LOW tolerance for boring nonfiction ...
Review: and yet I savored every well -structured, lucid chapter of this mind expanding book. The writing was succinct and convincing enough to have me frequently flipping forward to the appendix of detailed references and notes. It is not too often that I stumble on an argument which is tight enough to make me actually change the way I think. After reading this, I do not think less of the US. If anything, I expect more, much more. It provides a clear detailed retrospective analysis, and then compels the reader to keep a sharper , more objective eye out for certain sentinel events that may arrive in tomorrows newspaper. While the US is frequently the focus of discussion, the book says something about each one of us, and our unlimited potential for participating in both the stunningly honorable and unspeakably horrific. I left with the feeling that ALOT of people died so that we would read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Long Op Ed piece
Review: Samantha Powers, former journalist, Harvard Law grad, director of the Carr Center, etc. lays out a history of "genocides" in the twentieth century. She is fond of the word genocide, and spends a great deal of time on Lemkin, the lawyer who coined it and is, in her view, one of the great men of the last century. Her other theme is the failure of the Great Power (for her, the U.S.A. is the only country that counts) to stop genocide or punish it sufficiently. Despite its reasoned tone, her book is a cry that the U.S. become the policeman of the world in the name of human rights. The numerous five and one star reviews on Amazon seem to reflect the reviewers' opinions of such a policy.
The book shows her background in journalism: not a beautiful piece of prose, it is nonetheless smoothly written and is a quick read despite the substantial length and formidable subject matter. Prospective readers should not be put off by the length of the book. It is episodic, and many of the chapters can be read independently of each other. You can skim the parts you know and read carefully the things you don't.
The book consists of a series of case studies: Rwanda, Nazis, the Armenian Holocaust of 1915 and the Safaar Barluk, Kampuchea, Bosnia, the Iraqi Kurds. Each reads like a newspaper report, with vivid descriptions of the tragedy, and not much analysis.
And that is the problem: it is no use stating the problem from hell if you don't treat it as a serious problem. Power has a good eye for a gruesome story, and is excellent at expressing outrage, but her history is shallow, her analysis woefully limited, and her account of U.S. policy mediocre. Even her view of the U.S. as an eternally benign force for good needs to be supported by discussion. It is questionable whether genocide really is a modern phenomenon: I learned very early about the Israelites in Egypt, and how they escaped destruction in order to go into the land of Canaan... where it was bad luck for the Canaanites. More to the point, she falls short in her three immediate tasks:
1. Description of the case histories, where her sources are few and her view of the situation narrow.
2. Her analysis of U.S. policy is lacking. Besides considering the question of how the U.S. government can and should respond to a situation where it risks everything to achieve an ambiguous goal, Power fails to consider the fact that often the U.S. has done something (surely FDR cannot be accused to treating Hitler lightly?) and instances where the whole situation was complex: the Kurds, for example , were supported by the USSR and opposed by Iraq and Turkey, supported by the U.S. Anti-Iraqi Kurds became briefly fashionable only after Desert Storm. It is hard to see how the U.S. can be blamed for the actions of Hitler and the Khmer Rouge, both of whom we opposed with all our might. Moreover, it is not entirely unwelcome for those we dislike to do bad things: it makes us look good by comparison. The subject is far too long to discuss in an Amazon review, but it was not too long for Power to discuss in her book. This she failed to do.
3. She is not illuminating on the subject of genocide in general. To what extent is it simply a result of nationalism, mass politics, and even democracy? Armenia, Rwanda and Bosnia seem to be the direct result of the application of modern ideas of national identity and democratic politics to more complex pre-existing situations:the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, which left the Serbs out in the cold;the Turks, having been driven out of the Balkans, felt that they could not endure one more particularist group carving out a piece of Turkey; the Hutu, who decided that Rwanda was a Hutu country and that the Tutsi were best gotten rid of before they took over the whole place, which in fact they did.Once more, this question is far too large for a review, but not for a book. I found much to like in the organization of the book. But it is a book of great length and little depth. I finished it with great disappointment. I expected better of a Pulitzer prizewinner, an HLS grad, and the director of the Carr. Not a bad read, but not essential.
Rating:
Summary: America's shameful non-response to genocide laid bare
Review: Others have indicated that this is a 'tough read' but I didn't find Samantha Power's language tough at all - just the subject matter. I'm sure our government would prefer that this book gets relegated to remainder status very quickly because they would prefer it that Americans remain blissfully ignorant of the world around them. This gives them the luxury of intervening only in situations where our economic interests are threatened while ignoring the mass slaughter of civilians. As Ms. Powers painfully documents in case after case, it is apparent that the U.S. attitude is, 'Why intervene if there's nothing in it for us?' Morality and 'the right thing to do' apparently do not fit into the equation. Our 'successful' strategy in the face of genocide seems to have been simply to keep the debate going long enough over the semantics of the word 'genocide' until the problem has passed or there is no one left alive. As I read with disgust our country's shameful non-response to genocide in the twentieth century, I couldn't help thinking what message this sends to any future unsavory regimes around the world contemplating a little 'ethnic cleansing' within their borders. Do yourself a favor and buy this brilliant book, read it, and share it with others.
Rating: 
Summary: C or C+ effort
Review: A good documentation effort of the various genocides of the 20th century (although she suspiciosly leaves off the various Soviet purges and the China re-education where U.S. actions were mostly correct. However, I found 3 main drawbacks to the book. 1. Monday morning quarterbacking - What the author proposes that the US should have done in her opinion would have solved the genocides. I don't think she has the political experience to make those kinds of calls - if some major geopolitical figure had written the book I would have a tendency to believe them. I think the problems on the ground and at the time that they occured were bigger than she sees. 2. Focus on the US issues - She talks some about the international community but when it comes down to assigning
blame, she focuses on the US. She could have expanded her focus to the world community's response and provided
more details about what was going on at the UN in each of them - added a couple of hundred pages to her book and
it would have been much better, there is enough blame to go around on these issues, focusing on the US gave a little
too much blame and too much credit for our leverage at the UN (witness the Iraq confrontation). 3. She assumes that political matters operate on a moral ground. They don't. She should have greatly expanded the emphasis on how to move international politics to add a moral demension.
Rating:
Summary: Hypocritical
Review: Liberals bash politicians whenever they suggest military action of any sort, then they bash politicians when no intervention occurs and genocide takes place. While this book may have been admirable as a history of genocide, it does not serve as any sort of political literature for me. We may be powerful, but this does not make us the world's policeman. (If we did act as the world's policeman, we'd be accused of being a "bully" as well, by the way.) Taking part in each regional conflict would unnecessarily get us involved in other's affairs, costing countless American lives--and not making us any more popular in the eyes of the world, either. In addition, we may be powerful, but we don't have enough resources to fight off multiple dictatorships, terrorists, etc. etc. We have enough of a problem now fighting al-Qaida. America getting involved in outside disputes may also put us in peril for a World War III, because our presence is so powerful, other large nations are sure to join in. As I said, this book is great on documentation but weak politically. America HAS done a lot to stave off genocide. First, by just being an example of democracy for other nations to follow. We've also donated a whole lot of aid, both monetarily and in food, to starving peoples. Our involvement in some wars have also alleviated the suffering of countless millions. Think back to the concentration camps liberated by American troops. Think back to the mass graves Americans found in Iraq after freeing Iraqis from oppression under Saddam. Sorry America bashers. As a minority, maybe I have a different perspective. But from my family's experiences in the Old World to my own experiences in the New, I wouldn't trade this life for anything. America is a beacon of hope to those suffering, and has greatly improved the lives of those living in poverty or under harsh governments for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Genocide 101
Review: This is a great book for a person to learn about US policy when it comes to genocide. It doesn't paint a pretty picture but it lets the reader see for themselves where the US stood in each case of genocide. Yes, there have been better books about genocide but none as readable and easy for the average reader to understand. My only complaint is that the author should have touched upon issues that have been stated in other reviews.ie. Kissinger. Overall, this is an outstanding book by Ms. Power who is only 37 years old.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth reading
Review: When I saw there were 99 reviews of this book I thought there is no need for me to add a 100th, but I did decide to read the reviews. I myself decided to read this book because it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for General Non-fiction. I was surprised to see all the heat about the Armenian massacre, since I never previously realized that there was a school of thought which says it did not happen. I read The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, by Franz Werfel, finsihing it on Jan. 2, 1944, and have ever since accepted as factual the events which served as the basis of that book. I was and am willing to read an objective book on the Armenian massacre if there is such. All the heat displayed by the pro-Turkish reviewers of this book would have been better expended by their telling us exactly what objective scholarly work should be read to show that the facts are other than as Ms. Power depicts them in this book. (I would have e-mailed such reviewers directly and asked, but most of them are anonymous. If any read this, I am not anonymous and can be e-mailed and I invite them to do so.) I myself thought the book had a lot of things which deserve study and attention. Sure, there are atrocious massacres which the author does not discuss: Stalin, the Red Chinese, and I gather East Timor. Whether they fit into the definition of genocide is a question: obviously the Communist crimes were aimed at a group, but the Genocide Convention talks about "a national, ethnical, racial or religious" group and the kulaks and Mao's victims may not fit that categorization (is that why Communist Russia so readily ratified the Convention?). But the book is almost 600 pages now, and if every atrocity approaching genocide were included the book would be even longer. So I submit the book is full of information and much of it makes sense, though it is ironic that the current president has given as a reason for war events in the 1980s when Saddam gassed "his own people". If we can go to war over past genocide any time we feel like it, then our reasons for war at the time of our choosing will be greatly expanded. While one need not agree with everything Ms. Powers says, I think that what she says deserves thoughtful consideration. I am glad I read this book.
Rating:
Summary: The best book about Genocide
Review: If you want to know what has been going on in this world, you must buy it. I rate it A +++++.
Rating:
Summary: great book.
Review: This is an excellent book. I found it compelling and extremely informative.
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