Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention [DECKLE EDGE] (Hardcover)

~ Gary J. Bass (Author)
Key Phrases: mission creep, international commissioners, humanitarian intervention, Ottoman Empire, United States, London Greek Committee (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Bass, associate professor of international affairs at Princeton (Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals), makes the case with delightful wit, insight and scholarship that humanitarian military intervention arose not with genocide in Bosnia or Rwanda, but in Victorian times in parallel with democracy and the mass media. When Greeks rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, Turkish troops committed atrocities viewed by reporters and letter writers whose accounts produced a torrent of outrage. Reluctantly, British leaders began pressuring the sultan, but the failure of this effort led to Britain's great naval victory at Navarino that assured Greek independence. Bass moves on to two other half-forgotten but ghastly crises: the 1860s Syrian upheaval in which Maronite Christians and Druze slaughtered each other, and the 1870s mass murders of Bulgarians by the Ottomans. Bass ends with the Armenian genocide during WWI. Readers may squirm at the slowness with which nations acted to oppose gruesome cruelties, but they will relish Bass's gripping account of bloodthirsty characters, bitter political infighting and cynical leaders, forced by public opinion into moral actions that did not serve their own national interest. (Aug. 20) ""
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From The New Yorker

This engaging history of nineteenth-century campaigns to stop atrocities in Greece, Syria, and Bulgaria is a corrective to the idea that humanitarian interventions are a product of the �dreamy interlude� between 1989 and 9/11. The compelling narrative, rich with accounts of parliamentary debate and battlefield confrontation, presents a world of familiar political and military concerns, from the pressure of non-stop media coverage to the importance of a clear exit strategy. Bass�s thesis that humanitarianism long preceded the crises of Bosnia and Rwanda is persuasive, but this history seems a less useful guide for future efforts than he supposes. Resulting policy recommendations add little to liberal internationalist orthodoxy, and the new ideas he suggests, such as dividing the world into spheres of influence, seem ill-suited to conflicts such as those in Zimbabwe and Darfur.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (August 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307266486
• ISBN-13: 978-0307266484
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #240,500 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Regarding the Suffering of Others, October 5, 2008

By	Izaak VanGaalen (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Humanitarian intervention was a term often heard during the 1990s. In the decade following the end of the Cold War military intervention in sovereign states to prevent ethnic cleansing and other kinds of mass murder came at a lower price. Liberal internationalists could excercise their collective conscience more freely as the Soviet Union was disintegrating. American and Nato intervention in Bosnia (1995) came late as a massacre was already underway. The intervention in Kosovo (1999) was timely, for an ethnic cleansing had surely been averted. (Another good book on this subject is Samantha Power's A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (P.S.).) The interventions were possible because there was no great power willing or able to stop them. There was a convergence of realism and idealism. It was not only morally imperative but practical to reduce the suffering of others.

Gary Bass, a professor at Princeton, has given us a very thoroughly researched and elegantly written history of humanitarianism that goes back to the early 19th century. In the 1820s Byron and other philhellenes agitated for Greek independence from the Ottoman yoke. Arch-realists such as Metternich and Disraeli were afraid it would upset the balance of power in Europe. The Ottoman Empire, in their view, was keeping order among many restless nationalities in the East.

There was another movement for intervention against the Turks in the 1870s. This time it was led by British Prime Minister Gladstone who campaigned to save the Bulgarian Christians from Turkish atrocities. (In fact Tony Blair invoked Gladstone before the invasion of Iraq.) Bass here is very good at showing how the moral impulse to save others can be contaminated with imperialism and racism. The effort to save the Christians turned into a campaign to portray the Turks and Islam as something less than human. Gladstone was inclined to demonize things he knew very little about, a practice that one easily falls into when the enemy is brutal.

Bass points out the Western interventions on bahalf of rebellious peoples was not without long-term consequences. On the negative side, the realists were vindicated. Intervention in Eastern Europe set off a chain of events that ultimately led to World War I. Metternich and Disraeli had often warned that Europe would slide into chaos. On the positive side, Bass sees the origins of the more recent human rights consciousness that is both secular and universal. Even though many of the examples of humanitarian intervention given in this work were cases of saving Christians from Muslims, the groundwork for saving other human beings regardless of ethnicity or faith was laid. It must be noted that in the 20th century it was the West that came to the aid of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

In the 21st century the victims in Darfur, Myanmar, and other places have not been so lucky. With the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the spreading global financial crisis, the realists once again control the agenda, and the interventionists are seated firmly on the sidelines. Bass has written an excellent history on the ebbs and flows of humanitarian intervention and the conditions under which it is possible.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Freedom's battle (but is it applicable to the 21st century?), June 9, 2009

By	Bruce Lilley (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Well-written and entertaining description of the 19th-century conflict concerning the slow dissolution of the Ottoman empire through World War I, and Britain's response to various atrocities that occured as the subject people of the Empire fought for freedom. You will learn much about Britain's own internal conflicts resulting from being an colonial Empire, a democracy (of sorts) with an active free press, and Britain's desire to stop Russia from expanding to Contantinople and possibly blocking their route to Britain's own colonial subjects in India!. The last chapters focus more upon American isolationism and the Armenian genocide; isolationism won out, as everybody knows, tragically for the Armenians.

I agree with the New Yorker review above in that the examples presented are not really applicable to today's humanitarian problems, but it is a good history lesson and a good read nonetheless.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Muddled view of humanitarian intervention, February 23, 2009

By	R. C Sheehy "deadsox" (Foxboro,MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I like the idea that Mr. Bass tries to convey in this book by claiming that the 19th century witnessed the creation of the concept of humanitarian intervention. I just believe that he does a very poor job of proving his point. Mr. Bass seems to cherry pick cases that he thinks bolster his point and at the same time ignores those cases which contradict him. He then tries to negate opposing viewpoints by mentioning them, without going into any examination why the Greeks caused so much of an uproar in Europe, yet the Poles or Serbs did not.

Mr. Bass is also very weak in explaining the context of these adventures with the far reaching imperialism of the day. Again he mentions the irony of Great Britain willing to go to war over Bulgaria while fighting the Zulu in Africa. But he does not offer an examination of why this may be. There are also no mentions of China, Vietnam or a number of similar interventions including ones that are nakedly ambitious like Frances invasion of Mexico, the same time they were "helping" Christians in Syria.

All in all this is a weak book that doesn't really offer any insights other than to propose that humanitarian intervention began in the 19th century. An idea that while interesting, is also up for substantial debate.