For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world's most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital. The conflicts...

Drawing on the personal experiences and those of his colleagues in international humanitarian medicine, the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative looks at the alarming rise in violence against doctors and aid workers, demonstrates the urgent need to reverse it and explores how that can be accomplished.