Description
Book SynopsisJames Crossland is Senior Lecturer in International History at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. He is the author of
Britain and the International Committee of the Red Cross, 1939-1945 (2014), the first study of Britain's humanitarian policy during the Second World War. He has published widely on the history of wartime humanitarianism, international law and the Red Cross movement.
Trade ReviewReaders will find no uncritical homage to the peacemakers in this resolutely objective account of political changes during a turbulent half-century of conflict and suffering … James Crossland's patient examination of the decades before World War I is an essential guide to understanding how these fundamental changes in the law of warfare after World War II came to be. * Michigan War Studies Review *
A fascinating work for those interested in the nineteenth century, in the development of political thought, in international relations, military history, and a number of other sub-disciplines ... An important introduction to the subject. * European History Quarterly *
Crossland’s searching autopsy of humanitarian action, inspiration, and deed, persuasively demonstrates that there was no monolithic humanitarian sensibility in the long nineteenth century—instead the variegated impulses that inspired ostensibly and implicitly humanitarian interventions of all types were motivated by a wide and divergent realm of imperatives. A fascinating read. * Branden Little, Associate Professor of History, Weber State University, USA *
Since Geoffrey Best
’s
Humanity in Warfare (1980), I have never read such a fine work on the attempts to regulate or outcast war. Starting hopefully in the midst of the 19th century and ending horribly in August 1914, War, Law and Humanity tells the tale of military (medical) men, legal and medical humanitarians as well as outright pacifists, debating ideals and realism, quarrelling between each other and among themselves, while several wars set the scene. It is as fascinating as it is important. * Leo van Bergen, Lecturer in Military-medical History, Royal Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, The Netherlands *
Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgements Dramatis Personae Timeline Introduction – A Time for Angels 1. The Crimean Crucible 2. Citizen-Humanitarians 3. The Union Way 4. Visions from Geneva 5. How Best to Serve the Suffering? 6. When Angels Go to War 7. Humanity and Necessity 8. The Sound of Drums 9. Enter the Peace-Seekers 10. Regulations for Apocalypse Conclusion – 1914: The Campaign Ends? Bibliography Index
