This volume explores the scale and meaning of humanitarianism during the era of the Great War (1914-24). Bringing together a diverse range of scholars, it offers a fresh perspective on how and why humanitarian engagement shaped the arc of violence unleashed during these years, and analyses the extent to which the events influenced the development of humanitarian concepts and practices.

Building on a decade of scholarship that has predominantly focused on the work of non-governmental humanitarian actors, the collection foregrounds the role of governmental agencies in humanitarian affairs and examines both the motivations and transnational networks of donor publics and the views of the beneficiaries of humanitarian aid. It explores how the connection between humanitarian engagement and international politics gave rise to a range of diverse humanitarian agendas, which were tied to and driven by larger questions of war and peace and conceptions of social and political order.

The chapters address the debate over the emergence of 'modern' humanitarianism. Instead of seeing it as either the beginning of 'modern' humanitarianism or the end of its nineteenth century variant, the volume depicts the era as an important conjuncture in the history of humanitarianism. This was a transitional period, in which humanitarianism took on a myriad of different forms and resulted in a picture that was more complex and less triumphalist than many contemporary protagonists, and historians, have tended to admit.