Until quite recently, international relations theory neglected the role of emotions. This chapter surveys the rehabilitation of emotions and moral sentiment in political and international relations theory with a view to examining the cultivation of sympathy as a normative and historical condition of international humanitarian law as a ‘civilising process’. The chapter argues that, as part of a broader ‘civilising process’ to alleviate unnecessary human suffering, moral sentiment has been an indispensable, if ambivalent, factor in the historical pursuit of humanitarian action. The chapter argues that the modern codification of international humanitarian law is predicated on the cultivation of moral sentiments such as sympathy and compassion being extended to those injured or killed on the battlefields.

This contests Norbert Eliass view of the civilizing process. It argues that in the first decades of the eighteenth century, the promotion of gentler manners worked in the service of military aggression. Martial virtue was promoted against the threat of effeminacy and corruption, while poets celebrated the humanity of brutal victors in contemporary wars. The Fast and Thanksgiving services of the Church sancitifed the violence of the war zone while discouraging brutality in daily life. Fears about the corrupting influence of war news were countered by ideal models of martial virtue. A new theory of the sublime was developed, which claimed that an imaginative engagement with representations of violence could have a humanizing effect.

This chapter examines the Eurasian Transformation as a catalyst for the rise of the Asian and Western empires that together reshaped Asia during the early modern period. Specifically, I aim to understand how the Eurasian Transformation made it possible for ‘barbarians’ to establish primacy over pre-existing international systems in South and East Asia, despite their limited numbers and stigmatised status. I begin by offering a synoptic overview of Eurasia at c. 1500. I next introduce the Eurasian Transformation, a unique conjunction of military, economic, cultural and administrative macro-processes that together made new forms of empire-building possible from this time on. I conclude by considering the Eurasian Transformation’s diverse impacts on Eurasia’s sedentary power centres, and on the liminal ‘barbarian’ actors populating Eurasia’s land and sea frontiers.

This chapter introduces the history of manners in Thailand, linking it to the sociological concept of habitus or 'second nature': how historical experience leaves its imprint on the way people speak, act, and think. It surveys the sociological literature about habitus, discussing in particular detail the work of Norbert Elias, including his famous study of the history of manners in Western Europe, The Civilizing Process. The chapter argues that Elias’s concept of a civilizing process may be adapted to the Thai context to better understand how manners in Thailand have evolved. It proposes that the history of manners in Thailand may be divided into four periods: the age of colonialism and absolutism (the second half of the nineteenth century); the age of revolution (the first half of the twentieth century); the age of reaction (the post-World War II period); and the age of democracy and development (since roughly the 1970s). The chapter also discusses the related concepts of civility and civilization.

In the conclusion I argue that rather than seeing Thai manners as one element within an essentialized 'Thai culture', we ought to understand the history of manners in Thailand as a variation of Norbert Elias’s notion of a civilizing process. Seen as a historical process, change in conduct and modes of civility in Thailand looks remarkably like that which has taken place in the West. I also explain why the courtly ethos has been so prominent in Thai conceptions of good manners and civility, by contrast to many of its Asian neighbours. I end the chapter and the book by arguing along Braudellian lines for the importance of an understanding of Thai history over the long term.