The NGO Moment

This book is a study of compassion as a global project from Biafra to Live Aid. Kevin O'Sullivan explains how and why NGOs became the primary conduits of popular concern for the global poor between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s and shows how this shaped the West's relationship with the post-colonial world. Drawing on case studies from Britain, Canada and Ireland, as well as archival material from governments and international organisations, he sheds new light on how the legacies of empire were re-packaged and re-purposed for the post-colonial era, and how a liberal definition of benevolence, rooted in charity, justice, development and rights became the dominant expression of solidarity with the Third World. In doing so, the book provides a unique insight into the social, cultural and ideological foundations of global civil society. It reveals why this period provided such fertile ground for the emergence of NGOs and offers a fresh interpretation of how individuals in the West encountered the outside world.

• A major contribution to our understanding of how global civil society was forged from the 1960s to the 1980s
• Breaks away from the American-centric frames that have dominated the historiography by focusing on the experiences of organisations in three Anglophone states with differing experiences of empire and globalisation – Britain, Canada and Ireland
• Appeals to a strong inter-disciplinary audience, particularly those interested in humanitarianism, human rights, development, international relations, and transnational activism