This book provides fresh perspectives on a key period in the history of humanitarianism. Drawing on economic, cultural, social and diplomatic perspectives, it explores the scale and meaning of humanitarianism in the era of the Great War. Foregrounding the local and global dimensions of the humanitarian responses, it interrogates the entanglement of humanitarian and political interests and uncovers the motivations and agency of aid donors, relief workers and recipients. The chapters probe the limits of humanitarian engagement in a period of unprecedented violence and suffering and evaluate its long-term impact on humanitarian action.

Introduction: humanitarianism and the Greater War - Elisabeth Piller and Neville Wylie
PART I: GLOBAL WAR, GLOBAL AID
1 Humanitarian aid across the ocean: Argentine contributions to the relief of Europe during the Great War - María Inés Tato
2 Sagas of swords, scrolls, and dolls: Japanese humanitarian aid to Belgium -Hanne Deleu
3 Geographies of humanitarian mobilisation: Portuguese Africa and the Great War - Ana Paula Pires
4 Philanthropy in time of war: Paul Nathan and the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden -Christoph Jahr
PART II: THE POLITICS AND POWER OF AID
5 The neutrals at war: humanitarian competition in the Great War - Cédric Cotter
6 Neutrality and the politics of protection: the United States as a protecting power, 1914-17 - Neville Wylie
7 Blockaders as humanitarians? Connecting the Allied blockade of Germany and post-war
Humanitarianism - Phillip Dehne
8 Better fed than red: international famine relief, 1921-22 - Kimberly Lowe
PART III: THE LEGACIES AND LIMITS OF GREAT WAR-ERA RELIEF
9 Abandoning Poland: Great War humanitarianism as a history of failure - Elisabeth Piller
10 Children and the 'hunger politics' of 1919-20: food aid to German children and the
founding of the international Save the Children Movement - Tatjana Eichert and Rebecca Gill
11 'The most deplorable victims'? The language of humanitarianism and relief to intellectuals in the era of the Great War -Tomás Irish
12 The imperial 'guardians' of slavery: international humanitarianism, colonial labour policies, and the crisis of imperial governance under the League of Nations, 1919-26 - Christian Mueller
Afterword - Branden Little
Index

Editors

Elisabeth Piller is an Assistant Professor of Transatlantic and North American History at the University of Freiburg

Neville Wylie is a Professor of International History and Deputy Principal at the University of Stirling