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“A Problem from Hell”

America and the Age of Genocide

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By Samantha Power

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$22.99

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$29.99 CAD

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

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From former UN Ambassador and author of the New York Times bestseller The Education of an Idealist Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on America’s repeated failure to stop genocides around the world

In her prizewinning examination of the last century of American history, Samantha Power asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow “never again” repeatedly fail to stop genocide?

Power, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations, draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington’s top policymakers, thousands of declassified documents, and her own reporting from modern killing fields to provide the answer. “A Problem from Hell” shows how decent Americans inside and outside 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.

A modern classic and “an angry, brilliant, fiercely useful, absolutely essential book” (New Republic), “A Problem from Hell” has forever reshaped debates about American foreign policy.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
Winner of the Raphael Lemkin Award

Genre:

  • "Magisterial."
    New Yorker
  • "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
  • "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

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

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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.

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