The Origins of Global Humanitarianism Religion, Empires, and Advocacy [Paperback]

This book locates the historical origins of modern global humanitarianism in the recurrent conflict over the ethical treatment of non-Europeans.How, when, and why did ordinary people began to care for the fate of distant strangers? This book addresses these questions by reconstructing, for the first time, the historical origins of global humanitarianism. Peter Stamatov investigates these origins in the context of European overseas imperialism between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The narrative reveals how, from Catholic friars in Iberian empires to Quakers in British colonies, generations of religious reformers gradually and tenaciously developed the political techniques of moral engagement across space.How, when, and why did ordinary people began to care for the fate of distant strangers? This book addresses these questions by reconstructing, for the first time, the historical origins of global humanitarianism. Peter Stamatov investigates these origins in the context of European overseas imperialism between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The narrative reveals how, from Catholic friars in Iberian empires to Quakers in British colonies, generations of religious reformers gradually and tenaciously developed the political techniques of moral engagement across space.Whether lauded and encouraged or criticized and maligned, action in solidarity with culturally and geographically distant strangers has been an integral part of European modernity. Traversing the complex political landscape of early modern European empires, this book locates the historical origins of modern global humanitarianism in the recurrent conflict over the ethical treatment of non-Europeans that pitted religious reformers against secular imperial networks. Since the sixteenth-century beginnings of European expansion overseas and in marked opposition to the exploitative logic of predatory imperialism, these reformers  members of Catholic orders and, later, Quakers and other reformilF