Raphael Lemkin and Samantha Power's Problem from Hell

Gabriel Sanders

Ten years ago, Samantha Power won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “A Problem From Hell,” a history of American inaction in the face of genocide. As she awaits Senate confirmation to be the country’s next ambassador to the United Nations (*), the book offers a glimpse into Power’s political philosophy — and a sense of whom she might want to emulate as America’s voice at the world body.             

The Father of Genocide

Outraged by the Ottomans' massacres of Armenians,

a young Polish lawyer pushed to have

the crime of genocide enshrined in law

 

 

Yascha Mounk

 

During World War I, Soghomon Tehlirian, an Armenian civilian, looked on helplessly as Ottoman troops shot his mother, raped his sisters and hacked his brother to death. Six years later, on a Berlin street, Tehlirian approached Talaat Pasha, a grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire who had coordinated the killing of Armenians. "This is for my mother," he told Pasha as he shot him dead.