Saving the World?
Western Volunteers and the Rise of the Humanitarian-Development Complex

Innovative history of how volunteers helped build a global consensus that Western development intervention across the Global South was desirable.

Agnieszka Sobocinska (Author)

9781108746885, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 December 2022

328 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.536 kg

'… impressive … through her clever use of archives and a commanding array of media sources, [Sobocinska] carefully constructs a global history that will likely provide a model for others to follow. … there is much to admire …' Kevin O'Sullivan, History Australia

From the 1950s, tens of thousands of well-meaning Westerners left their homes to volunteer in distant corners of the globe. Aflame with optimism, they set out to save the world, but their actions were invariably intertwined with decolonization, globalization and the Cold War. Closely exploring British, American and Australian programs, Agnieszka Sobocinska situates Western volunteers at the heart of the 'humanitarian-development complex'. This nexus of governments, NGOs, private corporations and public opinion encouraged continuous and accelerating intervention in the Global South from the 1950s. Volunteers attracted a great deal of support in their home countries. But critics across the Global South protested that volunteers put an attractive face on neocolonial power, and extended the logic of intervention embedded in the global system of international development. Saving the World? brings together a wide range of sources to construct a rich narrative of the meeting between Global North and Global South.

Introduction: Western volunteers and the rise of the humanitarian-development complex
1. An idea for all seasons
2. Conquering the globe
3. Buying into the humanitarian-development complex
4. Sentimental radicals and adventurers
5. The publicity machine
6. The view from the other side
7. A little colony
8. The intimacy of the humanitarian-development complex
9. Resistance
10. To hell with good intentions.

Subject Areas: International humanitarian law [LBBS], Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM], History of the Americas [HBJK], General & world history [HBG]