Humanitarian Intervention, as an identifiable individual subject of research has drawn an impressive amount of interdisciplinary attention in the last two decades. Having published the German version of my book in 2008 to positive reviews, I was obviously hoping it would receive some international recognition as well. Imagine, then, the bemusement when, in 2011, Cambridge University Press published “Humanitarian Intervention – A History”, edited by Brendan Simms and D.J.B. Trim. My book makes an appearance, in the introduction, for which both editors take responsibility. And they can’t even spell my name. Now, I agree – Swatek-Evenstein is a bit of a mouthful, but it’s not where they got it wrong. Apparently, they do think my first name is “Mar”. My best guess is that they got their info from this German online magazine and never bothered to actually read the book. Which is probably why I didn’t do as well as Gary Bass “archivally grounded study” (the quote here is from Simms/Trim – as pictured -, but on Bass you should read this review or this essay instead). I did write to the editors, expressing my disappointment that they gave my book the treatment any first semester student is discouraged from giving any source. But I never heard back, which is just as well, given some of the other first semester student treatment of sources apparent in their book (see John Bew, ‘From an umpire to a competitor’, in: Simms/Trim, Humanitarian Intervention – A History, p 119, fn 9. On this see p. 73, fn 213 in my “A History of Humanitarian Intervention”).
