Stefano Recchia is University Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Cambridge. Jennifer Welsh is Professor in International Relations at the University of Oxford and Co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict.

• Introduction: the enduring relevance of classical thinkers Stefano Recchia and Jennifer Welsh; 1. Intervention in European history, c.1520–1850 David Trim; 2. War in the face of doubt: early modern classics and the preventive use of force Ariel Colonomos; 3. Vitoria: the law of war, saving the innocent, and the image of God William Bain; 4. Grotius, Hobbes and Pufendorf on humanitarian intervention Richard Tuck; 5. John Locke on intervention, uncertainty, and insurgency Samuel Moyn; 6. Intervention and sovereign equality: legacies of Vattel Jennifer Pitts; 7. David Hume and Adam Smith on international ethics and humanitarian intervention Edwin Van de Haar; 8. Sovereignty, morality and history: the problematic legitimization of force in Rousseau, Kant and Hegel Pierre Hassner; 9. Revisiting Kant and intervention Andrew Hurrell; 10. Edmund Burke and intervention: empire and neighborhood Jennifer Welsh; 11. The origins of liberal Wilsonianism: Giuseppe Mazzini on regime change and humanitarian intervention Stefano Recchia; 12. J. S. Mill on non-intervention and intervention Michael Doyle.

'Arguments about whether or not military intervention is justified overshadow much of today's international agenda. This authoritative collection, encompassing the reflections across four centuries of the major luminaries of European thought, will greatly enrich those debates, as well as documenting an intellectual history in its own right.' Ian Clark, Aberystwyth University