"A Problem From Hell:" America and the Age of Genocide | Themes

"A Problem From Hell:" America and the Age of Genocide Themes

Atrocity/Genocide

The central topic for "A Problem from Hell:" America and the Age of Genocide is atrocity. Throughout the chapters, Power presents one instance of genocide after another. In each case, the common thread is a government trying to exterminate a group of people within its borders. As Lemkin argued, the victimized group can be targeted for a number of reasons: ethnicity, religion, politics, or race. The key factor is that the group is targeted not for what they have done, but for who they are. This means that the majority of the victims will be innocent bystanders and civilians. They were not soldiers fighting in battle or revolutionaries.

The instances that Power discusses are varied ; however, they all involve the loss of life, often in the form of mass executions and massacres. The genocide in Srebrenica is one example of this, where over 4,000 men and boys were taken...
(read more)