The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1918–1924

Pioneering study of the transition from war to peace and the birth of humanitarian rights after the Great War.

Bruno Cabanes (Author)

9781107020627, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 March 2014

400 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.7 kg

'Humanitarians in the 1920s had not yet developed the bureaucracy or resources that they would acquire after World War II. But the fact that these humanitarian efforts did not, in the end, secure a lasting peace is no reason to diminish their aspirations, their vision, or their extensive work. Cabanes has done them justice in excavating their unique role in the history of humanitarianism, and he has presented scholars of humanitarianism with a compelling model for future work.' Rachel Chrastil, The Journal of Modern History

The aftermath of the Great War brought the most troubled peacetime the world had ever seen. Survivors of the war were not only the soldiers who fought, the wounded in mind and body. They were also the stateless, the children who suffered war's consequences, and later the victims of the great Russian famine of 1921 to 1923. Before the phrases 'universal human rights' and 'non-governmental organization' even existed, five remarkable men and women - René Cassin and Albert Thomas from France, Fridtjof Nansen from Norway, Herbert Hoover from the US and Eglantyne Jebb from Britain - understood that a new type of transnational organization was needed to face problems that respected no national boundaries or rivalries. Bruno Cabanes, a pioneer in the study of the aftermath of war, shows, through his vivid and revelatory history of individuals, organizations, and nations in crisis, how and when the right to human dignity first became inalienable.

Introduction: human disasters: humanitarian rights and the transnational turn in the wake of the First World War
1. 'Rights, not charity': René Cassin and war victims
2. Justice and peace: Albert Thomas, the ILO and the dream of a transnational politics of social rights
3. The tragedy of being stateless: Fridtjof Nansen and the rights of refugees
4. The hungry and the sick: Herbert Hoover, the Russian famine, and the professionalization of humanitarian aid
5. Humanitarianism old and new: Eglantyne Jebb and children's rights
Conclusion: human dignity: from humanitarian rights to human rights
Bibliographical essay
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: International humanitarian law [LBBS], Politics & government [JP], Military history [HBW]