Catastrophic Diplomacy - by Julia F Irwin

About the Book

"Catastrophic Diplomacy offers a sweeping history of US foreign disaster assistance, highlighting its centrality to twentieth-century US foreign relations. Spanning over seventy years, from the dawn of the twentieth century to the mid-1970s, it examines how the US government, US military, and their partners in the American voluntary sector responded to major catastrophes around the world. Focusing on US responses to sudden disasters caused by earthquakes, tropical storms, and floods-crises commonly known as 'natural disasters'-historian Julia F. Irwin highlights the complex and messy politics of emergency humanitarian relief. Deftly weaving together diplomatic, environmental, military, and humanitarian histories, Irwin tracks the rise of US disaster aid as a tool of foreign policy, showing how and why the US foreign policy establishment first began contributing aid to survivors of international catastrophes. While the book focuses mainly on bilateral assistance efforts, it also assesses the broader international context in which the US government and its auxiliaries operated, situating their humanitarian responses against the aid efforts of other nations, empires, and international organizations. At its most fundamental level, Catastrophic Diplomacy demonstrates the importance of international disaster assistance-and humanitarian aid more broadly-to US foreign affairs"--

Book Synopsis

Catastrophic Diplomacy offers a sweeping history of US foreign disaster assistance, highlighting its centrality to twentieth-century US foreign relations. Spanning over seventy years, from the dawn of the twentieth century to the mid-1970s, it examines how the US government, US military, and their partners in the American voluntary sector responded to major catastrophes around the world. Focusing on US responses to sudden disasters caused by earthquakes, tropical storms, and floods--crises commonly known as "natural disasters"--historian Julia F. Irwin highlights the complex and messy politics of emergency humanitarian relief.

Deftly weaving together diplomatic, environmental, military, and humanitarian histories, Irwin tracks the rise of US disaster aid as a tool of foreign policy, showing how and why the US foreign policy establishment first began contributing aid to survivors of international catastrophes. While the book focuses mainly on bilateral assistance efforts, it also assesses the broader international context in which the US government and its auxiliaries operated, situating their humanitarian responses against the aid efforts of other nations, empires, and international organizations. At its most fundamental level, Catastrophic Diplomacy demonstrates the importance of international disaster assistance--and humanitarian aid more broadly--to US foreign affairs.

Review Quotes

"Catastrophic Diplomacy is a rich, ground-breaking, and thoroughly researched study. Julia F. Irwin brilliantly demonstrates that foreign disaster assistance never functioned as a disinterested form of aid. . . . Irwin [is] an indispensable and authoritative voice of twentieth-century U.S. diplomatic history."--Journal of American History

"Catastrophic Diplomacy is a much-needed intervention in the expanding historiography of humanitarianism and foreign aid. It is invaluable for demonstrating the politics and practices of aid delivery, addressing both the United States' weaponization of relief in emergency contexts, as well as for uncovering the fascinating internal disputes between field-based internal disputes between field-based U.S. personnel as they debated what was the 'right' way to intervene in global crises. . . . I highly recommend adding this book to the canon of must-read humanitarian histories."--Margot Tudor, Passport

"An important, deeply researched, finely crafted, and readable book [that] breaks new ground in detailing the long history of the understudied subject of US disaster aid overseas. It challenges conventional wisdom about when the United States became involved in foreign aid. It offers a window into foreign policy decision-making in the early twentieth century. . . . And it shows that the United States often acted on a humane impulse to relieve suffering in other nations, albeit sometimes doing so in a self-interested, controlling, and/or condescending manner."--H-Diplo Roundtable

"Brilliant. . . . [A]n exciting argument and an important corrective to the historiography of foreign aid."--Diplomatic History

"Insgesamt ist ein großes Verdienst von Julia Irwin, die Verbindung von Hilfsbereitschaft und geleisteter staatlicher Hilfe als Teil der nationalen Interessenpolitik über das 20. Jahrhundert im Wandel umfassend informiert und klar argumentierend an markanten Beispielen nachgegangen zu sein."--sehepunkte

Translation: "Overall, Julia Irwin's great achievement is that she has investigated the connection between willingness to help and state aid as part of national interest policy over the changing 20th century in a comprehensive and clearly argued manner using striking examples."--sehepunkte

"A comprehensive and critical examination of an important yet under-explored aspect of US international relations. Irwin's work, rich in detail and scope, represents an invaluable resource not only for historians of US American foreign policy but also for current practitioners and policymakers in the field of international aid and diplomacy . . . . [a] sweeping study . . . . a significant scholarly achievement."--Not Even Past

"For the current and future practice of disaster aid in the climate century, Catastrophic Diplomacy illustrates that nothing was inevitable in the history of US foreign disaster relief."H-Environment

"This thought-provoking book . . . . reveals how factors such as geopolitical self-interest, national sovereignty, socioeconomic disparities, and pure happenstance influenced when and how the US chose to respond to humanitarian crises . . . .understanding how the US historically used foreign assistance to further its self-interest abroad provides important lessons that can inform American policymakers' responses to international catastrophes today."--CHOICE

About the Author

Julia F. Irwin is associate professor of history at the University of South Florida.