Humanitarian Intervention: A History

by Brendan Simms (Editor), D.J.B. Trim (Editor)

The dilemma of how best to protect human rights is one of the most persistent problems facing the international community today. This unique and wide-ranging history of humanitarian intervention examines responses to oppression, persecution and mass atrocities from the emergence of the international state system and international law in the late sixteenth century, to the end of the twentieth century. Leading scholars show how opposition to tyranny and to religious persecution evolved from notions of the common interests of 'Christendom' to ultimately incorporate all people under the concept of 'human rights'. As well as examining specific episodes of intervention, the authors consider how these have been perceived and justified over time, and offer important new insights into ideas of national sovereignty, international relations and law, as well as political thought and the development of current theories of 'international community'.

Genres: History

426 pages, Hardcover

First published April 7, 2011

About the author

Brendan Peter Simms is Professor of the History of International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. Simms studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he was elected a scholar in history in 1986, before completing his doctoral dissertation, Anglo-Prussian relations, 1804-1806: The Napoleonic Threat, at Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Tim Blanning in 1993. A Fellow of Peterhouse, he lectures and leads seminars on international history since 1945