Moorehead.^33 But perhaps most important is the outstanding contribution of David
Rieff, whose A Bed for the Night captures many of the tensions and paradoxes at
stake.^34
These contributions are being enriched by creative cross-disciplinary
academic work with a strongly applied focus by scholars such as Alex de Waal, David
Keen and Stephen Hopgood.^35 The coming-of-age of this kind of work is exemplified
by a recent collection edited by Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss, perhaps the
most important contribution to the academic study of humanitarianism, which
provides an interesting comparison with an earlier collection, setting out some of
the problems at stake, by Jonathan Moore.^36 Weiss himself is perhaps one of the
most important figures in the academic study of humanitarianism, having written,
co-written and edited a series of influential articles and books, in dialogue with
interlocutors from politics, practice and academia, often within the pages of Ethics
33
Michael Ignatieff, The Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience (London:
Vintage, 1999). Caroline Moorehead, Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of
the Red Cross (London: Harper Collins, 1999). Caroline Moorehead, Human Cargo: A
Journey among Refugees (London: Vintage, 2006). William Shawcross, The Quality of Mercy:
Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience (Glasgow: Fontana, 1985). William
Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). 34
David Rieff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (London: Vintage, 2002). David
Rieff, At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention (New York: Simon
& Schuster, 2006). For an interesting reading of A Bed for the Night see Jenny Edkins,
"Humanitarianism, Humanity, Human", 35 Journal of Human Rights 2, no. 2 (2003).
Alex de Waal, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa (Oxford: J.
Currey, 1997). Stephen Hopgood, Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty
International (London: Cornell University Press, 2006). David Keen, Complex Emergencies
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008). 36
Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss, eds., Humanitarianism in Question: Politics,
Power, Ethics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008). Jonathan Moore, ed., Hard Choices:
Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). Henry
Radice, "Review of Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss (Eds), Humanitarianism in
Question: Politics, Power, Ethics ", Millennium: Journal of International Studies 38, no. 3
(2010). See also the practitioner accounts in Fabrice Weissman, ed., In the Shadow Of "Just
Wars": Violence, Politics and Humanitarian Action (London: Hurst & Company, 2004). A
recent collection of Barnett’s essays is also invaluable. Michael Barnett, The International
Humanitarian Order (London: Routledge, 2010).