Against massacre : humanitarian interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914 : the emergence of a European concept and international practice /

Scholars of international relations, law, and other disciplines have explored the phenomenon of humanitarian intervention, in which one or more states acting on behalf of the international community invades a sovereign state in response to the mass killing of civilians. Rodogno (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) takes a historical approach to the issue in this deeply researched study of how the European Great Powers (primarily Great Britain and France) dealt with the massacres of civilians within the Ottoman Empire between 1825 and 1914. After establishing that the Europeans viewed the Ottoman Turks as uncivilized and degraded, Rodogno describes how the British and French governments, lobbied by vocal domestic pressure groups, decided whether or not to intervene to protect civilians under attack in Greece, Crete, Lebanon and Syria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Armenia. He argues that interventions were framed as assistance to fellow Christians under Ottoman rule, with the Great Powers demonstrating little or no concern about violence directed against Muslim victims. Rodogno concludes by drawing parallels between these cases and recent humanitarian crises, suggesting that intervention now as then is "subordinate to collective security priorities of the intervening states." Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. A. H. Plunkett Piedmont Virginia Community College