The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War by Conor Foley

From the Publisher

The idea that we should "do something" to help those suffering in far-off places is the main impulse driving those who care about human rights. Yet from Kosovo to Iraq, military interventions have gone disastrously wrong. In this acclaimed book, Conor Foley explores how the doctrine of humanitarian intervention has been used to allow states to invade other nations in the name of human rights. Drawing on his own experience of working in over a dozen conflict and post-conflict zones, Foley shows how the growing influence of international law has been used to override the sovereignty of the poorest countries in the world. The Thin Blue Line describes how in the last twenty years humanitarianism has emerged as a multibillion dollar industry that has played a leading role in defining humanitarian crises, and shaping the foreign policy of Western governments and the United Nations. Yet, too often, this has been informed by myths and assumptions that rest on an ill-informed post-imperial arrogance. Movements set up to show solidarity with the powerless and dispossessed have ended up betraying them instead.

The New York Times - Scott Malcomson

[Foley's] discussion of the humanitarians' use of politics to further their ends benefits not only from his legal training but also from his insider's experience. Foley seems to have been in almost every geopolitical mess from Kosovo to Afghanistan. He has watched as the nongovernmental organizations began, ever so slowly at first, to endorse the use of force for humanitarian purposes.

Publishers Weekly

Former South African Member of Parliament Feinstein delivers a damning portrait of the African National Congress in this lacerating political memoir. The author, who won a seat in the provincial legislature in South Africa's first democratic elections, affectionately recounts the tenure of Nelson Mandela as president, reserving his criticism for Mandela's successor, Thabo Mbeki, whom he excoriates repeatedly-and sometimes repetitiously-for his denial of the country's AIDS crisis and failure to exert political pressure on Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe. The book's central narrative hinges on an investigation into an arms deal that revealed the depth of corruption in the Mbeki-led ANC. The text follows the investigation and the changing fortunes of the ANC through Mbeki's resignation in September of 2008, concluding at a moment of uncertainty for the country and the party. The author occasionally digresses from his compelling history of South African politics to reflect on his own Jewish-African identity and his philosophical approach to government-influenced by the writings of Vaclav Havel. Charged with passionate conviction, this book is a deeply personal but far-reaching insider's account of a political party losing its way. (May)

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Table of Contents