Description
Book SynopsisEmploying a wide range of source materials literary and artistic responses to violence, memoirs, and first-person accounts from victims, perpetrators, relief workers, and diplomats, the author argues that the international answer to the inhumanity of World War I in the Middle East laid the foundation for modern humanitarianism and more.
Trade Review"Impressive... Watenpaugh blends analysis of structural and political changes across a century of history with sensitive attention to the experiences of individual humanitarian actors and beneficiaries." H-Net "Its transnational approach and accessible prose are fitting for undergraduate and graduate courses. It will also appeal to specialized and general audiences. Bread from Stones deserves to be widely read and assigned." -- Osamah F. Khalil Diplomatic History "This is an immensely important book shedding new light on the study of the modern Western humanitarian impulse in the Near East and set primarily in the elaboration of the Armenian Genocide and post-genocide survival. It is a book that will find a strong readership among social scientists and historians, as well as the general public." Refuge "In sum, Bread from Stones offers a rich social and cultural overview in the service of a historical and intellectual genealogy of modern humanitarianism. The book serves up a complex narrative with many parts, each component articulated both on its own terms and as part of a larger picture." Syrian Studies Association Bulletin
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgments Note on Translation and Transliteration List of Abbreviations 1. The Beginnings of the Humanitarian Era in the Eastern Mediterranean 2. The Humanitarian Imagination and the Year of the Locust: International Relief in the Wartime Eastern Mediterranean, 1914--1918 3. The Form and Content of Suffering: Humanitarian Knowledge, Mass Publics, and the Report, 1885--1927 4. "America's Wards": Near East Relief and American Humanitarian Exceptionalism, 1919--1923 5. The League of Nations Rescue of Trafficked Women and Children and the Paradox of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920--1936 6. Between Refugee and Citizen: The Practical Failures of Modern Humanitarianism, 1923--1939 7. Modern Humanitarianism's Troubled Legacies, 1927--1948 Notes Select Bibliography Index
