The field of humanitarianism is characterised by profound uncertainty, by a constant need to respond to the unpredictable, and by concepts and practices that often defy simple or straightforward explanation. Humanitarians often find themselves not just engaged in the pursuit of effective action, but also in a quest for meaning. That is the starting point for this book.

Humanitarian action has in recent years confronted geopolitical challenges that have upended much of its conventional modus operandi and presented threats to its foundational assumptions and legal frameworks. The critical interrogation of the purpose, practice and future of humanitarian action has yielded a rich new field of enquiry, humanitarian studies, and many thoughtful books, articles and reports. So, the question arose as to the most useful way to provide a critical overview that might serve to bring some definitional clarity as well as analytical rigor to the waves of critique and shifting sands of humanitarian action.

Humanitarianism: A Dictionary of Concepts provides an authoritative analysis that attempts to rethink, rather than merely problematize or define the issues at stake in contemporary humanitarian debates. It is an important moment to do so. Just about every tenet of humanitarianism is currently open to question as never before.

Wolfgang Knoll received a PhD in biophysics at the University of Konstanz in 1976. In 1977, he joined the group of Prof. E. Sackmann at the University of Ulm, Germany, working on model membrane systems and their phase behavior by neutron scattering and spectroscopic and thermodynamic measurements. After a postdoctoral stay at the IBM Research Laboratory in San Jose, California (1980–1981), and a stay as a visiting scientist at the Institute Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, he joined the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich. From 1991 to 1999, he was head of Laboratory for Exotic Nanomaterials hosted by the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Wako, Japan. In 1992, he was appointed consulting professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, California. In 1998, Dr. Knoll was appointed professor of chemistry (by courtesy) at the University of Florida in Gainesville and in 1999 adjunct professor at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. From 1999 to 2003 he was a Temasek Professor at the National University of Singapore, and since 2008 is honorary professor at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria, and visiting professor at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. Since 2008 he is scientific managing director of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology in Vienna, Austria. His current research interests include aspects of the structure/order–property/function relationships of polymeric/organic systems, in particular in thin films and at functionalized surfaces.