Dunant’s Dream: War, Switzerland and The History of the Red Cross - Softcover

Moorehead, Caroline

3.84

38 ratings by Goodreads

9780006388838: Dunant’s Dream: War, Switzerland and The History of the Red Cross

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006388833 ISBN 13: 9780006388838

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999

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The only authoritative and comprehensive history of the Red Cross. ‘A magnificent book, vast and scholarly.’ JOHN KEEGAN, Telegraph

The International Red Cross was the inspiration – the dream – of Henri Dunant, a thirty-one-year-old Swiss businessman appalled by the butchery and lack of medical care for injured soldiers during the battle of Solferino in 1859. He set out to create an international organization which was not only to alter, irrevocably, the fate of all those wounded in every war, but which moved rapidly into international humanitarian law, refugee work, prison conditions and the tracking of people parted by warfare. Today the Red Cross has 137 national societies and 250 million members. Yet it remains an inscrutable institution – very much the same animal today as in the 1870s – governed by the Swiss alone.

Caroline Moorehead is the first writer to be granted unrestricted access to the extensive archives in Geneva, closed for over 100 years. They provide a unique study of the politics of conflict. Dunant’s Dream traces the Red Cross’s origins, investigating the extraordinary secretive paranoia of the headquarters. It uncovers some startling truths about the Red Cross and its relationship with some of the most horrific and barbaric political regimes of the twentieth century.

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Review:

‘A balanced, moving and utterly absorbing account of how high the human spirit can soar and the depths to which it can sink’
AMANDA FOREMAN, Independent;’A humane and remarkable book.’
MICHAEL BURLEIGH, Independent on Sunday;’This engrossing history frequently reads like a superb historical novel... delightful and unexpected.’
BRIAN PHILLIPS, Literary Review

From the Back Cover:

The Red Cross was the inspiration – the dream – of Henri Dunant, a thirty-one-year-old business man appalled by the butchery and lack of medical care for injured soldiers at the battle of Solferino in 1859. He set out to create an international organization which was to alter, irrevocably, the fate of all those wounded in every war. Caroline Moorhead is the first writer to be granted unrestricted access to the extensive Red Cross archives in Genvea, closed for over 100 years. 'Dunant’s Dream' traces the origins of the organization, and uncovers some startling truths about the Red Cross and its relationship with some of the most horrific and barbaric political regimes of the twentieth century. It is a moving and authoritative history of the politics of conflict by an author of real distinction which sheds light not just on the Red Cross but on the nature of humanity itself.

“A balanced, moving and utterly absorbing account of how high the human spirit can soar and the depths to which it can sink.”
AMANDA FOREMAN, 'Independent'

“'Dunant’s Dream' is both gripping and wide-reaching. Caroline Moorehead has found one of those little sub-plots of history which far from being dull or peripheral represents the shifting moralities of an entire age ... What emerges is no less than a modern Manichaean epic: the unarmed forces of good pitched against man’s ingenious and tireless capacity for cruelty ... an excellent book.”
PHILIP MARSDEN, 'Sunday Telegraph'

“This engrossing history frequently reads like a superb historical novel ... delightful and unexpected.”
BRIAN PHILLIPS, 'Literary Review'

A masterly and moving account ... truly outstanding.”
ROY PORTER, 'Sunday Times'

“A huge, compelling and compassionate book.”
MICHAEL IGNATIEFF, 'The Times'

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PublisherHarperCollins
Publication date1999
ISBN 10 0006388833
ISBN 13 9780006388838
BindingPaperback
Number of pages812
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Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross

Caroline Moorehead

Published by HarperCollins (1999)

ISBN 10: 0006388833 ISBN 13: 9780006388838

New Soft cover First Edition Quantity: 1

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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: New. 1st Edition. " The Red Cross was the dream of the Swiss businessman Henri Dunant that grew into the pre-eminent international humanitarian charity. The story begins in 1859, when almost by chance, Dunant witnessed the butchery and lack of care for injured soldiers during the battle of Solferino. Realizing that, although modern warfare meant more, and worse, wounded, medical treatment for the first time could save significant numbers of them, he began a crusade leading to 137 national societies and 250 million members today. Caroline Moorehead, a popular columnist on human rights for the London Independent, is the first writer to be granted wide access to the Red Cross's closed archives in Geneva. Her resulting book engrossingly recounts the Red Cross's full history and the moral dilemmas it has faced from the two World Wars to the post-Cold War conflicts of Somalia, Chechnya, and Bosnia. Review: When vacationing Genevan businessman Henri Dunant arrived at the resort community of Solferino, Italy, in June 1859, he certainly did not expect to find the remains of a bloody battle, concluded earlier in the day, between the Austrians and the French. The casualties, over 6,000 of them, horrified Dunant. More shocking were the survivors, left unattended on the bloody battlefield, many of them severely wounded and near death. Overcome by the brutality of the scene before him, Dunant organized and led a team of volunteers that systematically cared for the wounded. Within five years, he and four other prosperous Swiss citizens formed the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded and drafted the first Geneva Convention. Renamed in 1876 the International Committee of the Red Cross, the organization today comprises 137 national societies and 250 million members. The Committee that governs it, however, has changed little since the 1870s. According to Caroline Moorehead, author of Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross, the power to monitor and criticize all governments of the world remains "in the hands of a small band of co-opted, elderly Swiss lawyers and bankers." While the International Committee has operated staunchly on its self-prescribed principles throughout the 20th century, many of its decisions, actions, and instances of inaction have been ambiguous and seemingly motivated by politics. In Dunant's Dream, Moorehead, a London-based journalist, presents a scrutinizing yet balanced history of the organization. Despite its length, Dunant's Dream makes no attempt to be comprehensive. Instead, Moorehead, her argument supported by unprecedented access to private Red Cross archives in Geneva, analyzes the conflicts, issues, and moral dilemmas from over 130 years of war and natural disasters that have had the most determining effect on the growth of the modern Red Cross. "--Bertina Loeffler Sedlack. Seller Inventory # 018218

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