Humanitarian action confronts us with the dilemmas of international relations in the age of globalization. The approach in this book is holistic, comparative and analytical. Humanitarian intervention is considered from the point of view of political economy, public administration, international relations, international law, the military, political theory, sociology, culture and media studies. Chapters discuss experiences across Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, Iraq, Haiti and other cases, if we are moving towards global governance humanitarian intervention is part of this motion. It is a harbinger of a new global politics, which is all the more reason to consider it scrupulously.

Jan Nederveen Pieterse is presently Associate Professor in Sociology at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.