Book review: humanitarian negotiations revealed: the MSF experience, edited by Claire Magone, Michaël Neuman, and Fabrice Weissman; and, humanitarian reason: a moral history of the present by Didier Fassin

These two recent works make a complementary and refreshing contribution to the burgeoning field of humanitarian studies. Both books shed new light on the authority that humanitarians wield as mediators of suffering, the relationship between humanitarianism and politics, and the nature of “humanitarian space.” The first, an edited volume of case studies and essays by practitioners from or closely linked to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), focuses on the negotiations and compromises humanitarians are forced to make in their encounters with political interests on the ground. The second, by the sociologist and anthropologist Didier Fassin, sets out an account of humanitarianism as a mode of politics in and of itself.