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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which U.S. government official does Lemkin try to approach regarding Hitler?

2. In what year does the Armenian genocide, which kills nearly 1 million people, take place?

3. Why doesn't the international community prosecute individuals for their roles in exterminating millions of German Jews?

4. The genocide convention receives U.S. support at the UN and many are ____________ its domestic ratification.

5. Power witnesses the Serbs' takeover of:

Short Essay Questions

1. What intrigued Raphael Lemkin about the Armenian genocide?

2. What was the definition of genocide that was adopted by the UN?

3. In lobbying the UN General Assembly for a resolution on genocide, what kind of a law did Lemkin want the body to pass?

4. Which specific instance of genocide has American society committed itself to remembering and preventing a repetition of, which makes their slowness to react when genocide occurs disturbing to say the least?

5. What was the concern that several U.S. policymakers had with the ambiguous language of the UN genocide treaty?

6. What was the scope of the Nuremberg trials limited to as to what the tribunal was to punish?

7. Which senator from South Dakota believed that genocide was taking place in Cambodia and wanted the United States to contribute military forces to make it stop?

8. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proposed by the United States as an international law instead of the UN genocide treaty, what was Raphael Lemkin's reaction?

9. After Lemkin's death, William Proxmire, a senator from Wisconsin, took up the movement to have the genocide convention ratified in the U.S. What was the date of Senator Proxmire's first genocide speech?

10. What does Powers say motivates U.S. policymakers to keep the U.S. uninvolved in situations when genocide occurs?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Powers' argument in the book is that the United States has had information about all of the twentieth-century genocides and has done little to prevent or stop them. Using the text for support, compare and contrast the United States' reaction to each of the genocides in the book and then analyze whether or not Powers' argument is valid.

Essay Topic 2

Using examples from the text, analyze and explain the causes of the "Southeast Asia fatigue" that permeated most American newsrooms during the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Essay Topic 3

Compare and contrast the United States' initial response to each genocide covered in A Problem from Hell. Use the text to support your statements.

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