Making the World Safe The American Red Cross and a Nation's Humanitarian Awakening

"Julia F. Irwin shows that the Red Cross's rapid growth during World War I is a significant event that raises deep questions about the role charities should play in our country's diplomatic efforts... Irwin reminds us that the role Americans play overseas is complex and deeply rooted in our nation's history." --The Weekly Standard"Focusing on the American Red Cross, Julia Irwin traces a tradition of international humanitarianism in the United States from the late nineteenth century through World War II. Her work provides a significant building-block in understanding how the ARC assisted the state in waging war and also built capacity for efforts of international civilian relief." --Emily S. Rosenberg, editor of A World Connecting, 1870-1945"In Making the World Safe, Julia Irwin offers an impressive history of a new form of American humanitarianism by tracing the rise of the American Red Cross. She convincingly shows how, in close concert with government officials at home and abroad, the Red Cross both encouraged and channeled a new kind of global humanitarianism. Deeply researched and full of personal stories of Red Cross rank-and-file, Irwin offers an impressive social history of American internationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." --David C. Engerman, Brandeis University "Though focused on the American Red Cross and its international civilian relief efforts in the early twentieth century, this book is about far more than emergency housing, food provisioning, health care, and hygienic education. It is about the growing conviction that the United States people-and increasingly their government-should provide overseas humanitarian assistance for moral and political reasons. Covering a pivotal period in the history of U.S. aid, Irwin shows how an organization founded to assist the wounded became a progressive force for peace as well as an instrument of national policy. This is a book of both contemporary relevance and