Human rights
The main theme running throughout the book is a criticism of the blatant disregard for human life and rights when genocides happen. Power denotes how the Jews were debased during the Holocaust, how the Shia Muslims in Iraq were exhumated, and how the Turkish massacre of the Armenians was allowed to happen despite the global viewing from other nations.
A Blind Eye
Another matter running throughout is the historic theme of Western nations being involved in inciting or lacking the efforts to prevent these crimes against humanity. Power’s criticizes Bush and Reagan for providing aid to Saddam Hussein int eh self-interest of the US, despite his massacre against the Shia and Kurdish people. Moreover, she comments on how Clinton termed the phrase “Never again” after 9/11 yet was reluctant to aid in the slaughter of 200,000 Bosnians between 1992 and 1995.
Foreign policy
This is a secondary theme running throughout the book and is most vividly shown through the efforts of Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish Polish lawyer. Lemkin lobbied for more interest in the foreign policy issues surrounding the Jewish Holocaust, which eventually led to the creation of the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
