Book review: Humanitarian business

"Humanitarian Business." Thomas G. Weiss. Polity. January 2013. --- With some millions of people living under duress and threatened by wars and disasters, the demand for relief worldwide has reached unprecedented levels. Humanitarianism is now a multi–billion dollar enterprise, and aid agencies are obliged to respond to a range of economic forces in order to ‘stay in business’. Thomas G. Weiss offers penetrating insights into the complexities and challenges of the contemporary humanitarian marketplace in this recent book, which does much to address how we can create a more inclusive, accountable, equitable and global humanitarian system, writes Chris Harmer.