CCRJ will hold regular workshops to discuss the manuscripts of relevant, forthcoming books prior to publication, offering in the process expert academic and practitioner analysis of arguments and empirical claims in a small-group setting. The inaugural reading was: 

Michael Barnett, 'For Better and for Worse: The Lives and Times of Humanitarianism.'

Academic staff from the Politics, Law, and Development Studies departments, as well as practitioners from NGOs including Humanitarian Outcomes convened to discuss this draft manuscript on the origins and evolution of humanitarian practices. Other discussants included Janice Gross Stein, Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and Negotiation and Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and David Kennedy, Professor of Law at Harvard law School.

The manuscript provides the most comprehensive history of the practice of humanitarianism yet written, including detailed research on the origins of humanitarianism and primary evidence from archives and interviews on the origins of major international humanitarian NGOs. The manuscript argues, among other things, that there have been three ages of humanitarianism - imperial, neo-humanitarian and, in our era, liberal - but also that analysis of modern humanitarian action has underplayed the importance of faith. The manuscript will be published in 2011 under the title 'Empire of Humanity'.