Abstract

On Justifying Intervention

This article presents information on the book "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," by Samantha Power. The twentieth century was arguably the bloodiest in modern history, earning from one commentator the moniker of the Age of Barbarism. From the Nazi genocide, to the killing fields of Cambodia and Rwanda, to the "ethnically cleansed" areas of the former Yugoslavia, the twentieth century was one of unprecedented horror for many. What was unique to the twentieth century, and thus the subtitle of Samantha Power's very impressive "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," was the invention of the very word "genocide" and its establishment as a legal construct outlawing one of the most egregious forms of state terror.