Abstract
There is an enormous cluster of words all emerging from or connected with the term human. It is useful to examine some of the cluster in order to gain greater understanding of the emerging concept of Humanity.
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Notes
Richard Kilminster, writing about “Globalization as an Emergent Concept,” in The Limits of Globalization: Cases and Arguments, ed. Alan Scott (London: Routledge, 1997), 262, claims that “the word humanity derived from the Latin humanitas and corresponds to the French humanité, is first recorded as being in use meaning the human races in 1579 (OED). … As a synonym for humanity, the word humankind dates from 1645.” Here, again, we have the connection to race.
Gabrielle M. Spiegel, “Response to Constantin Fasolt’s Limits of History,” in “The Limits of History: An Exchange,” Historically Speaking 6, no. 5 (May/June 2005): 12.
For more on the way in which this expression of sympathy in the humanities becomes apart of the origins of the social sciences, cf. Bruce Mazlish, A New Science: The Breakdown of Connections and the Birth of Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989; and University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993, paperback).
Thomas L. Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility,” American Historical Review 90, nos. 2 and 3 (April and June 1985) 339–61 and 547–66.
John Tirman, “The New Humanitarianism,” Boston Review (Dec. 2003/Jan. 2004), reprinted in the Global Policy Forum, 1–2, http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/humaninty/2004/01newhumanitarianism.htm.l
On the general topic, see the splendid book by Gerrit W. Gong, The Standard of “Civilization” in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
Ibid., 91.
William Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 172.
Nicholas J. Wheeler, Seeing Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) is a well-regarded treatment of this issue. See Julie Mertus’s review of this book in AJIL 97, 224–27, from which the quote is taken. It should be noted that Wheeler’s book tends to ignore the role of social organizations and stays largely with a state-oriented frame.
John P. Cerone, “Dynamic Equilibrium: The Evolution of US Attitudes toward International Criminal Courts and Tribunals,” European Journal of International Law 18, no. 2 (2007): 277–315; the quote is on page 314. This is a carefully researched and nicely nuanced account of the shifts in U.S. attitudes toward institutions that involve in any way the relinquishment of American sovereignty. It also serves in regard to humanitarian aid, with the same emphasis on national interests.
Celia W. Dugger, “CARE Turns Down Federal Funds for Food Aid,” New York Times, April 16, 2007.
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© 2009 Bruce Mazlish
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Mazlish, B. (2009). Humanities, Humanitarianism, and the Human. In: The Idea of Humanity in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230617766_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230617766_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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