Red Cross’s Public Health Turn

Dr. Romain Fathi is Senior Lecturer at the School of History at The Australian National University and an Affiliated Researcher to the Centre for History of Sciences Po (CHSP).

“In the wake of war and humanitarian catastrophe, the 1919 Cannes Medical Conference marked an important, though often misunderstood moment in the shift to address public health within civil society at a global level. Romain Fathi’s meticulously researched book is essential for anyone interested in the conceptual and practical legacies of the Great War.” — Bruno Cabanes, Donald and Mary Dunn Chair, The Ohio State University, USA.“Fathi paints an illuminating portrait of the Cannes Medical Conference, tracing the origins and outcomes of this landmark event, the personalities involved, and the complex politics associated with it. In so doing, his book recovers a foundational moment in the histories of modern humanitarianism and global health.” — Julia F. Irwin, T. Harry Williams Professor of History, Louisiana State University, USA.“This eloquent and meticulously researched book uncovers how, from the ashes of the First World War, the 1919 Cannes Medical Conference catalyzed a shift from wartime relief to peacetime public health — paving the way for a new era in the Red Cross Red Crescent movement and international humanitarianism.” — Prof. Dr. Nel de Mûelenaere, Associate Professor in Contemporary History, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Ixelles, Belgium."Multiple audiences can benefit from this work. Humanitarian scholars can use Fathi’s framework to consider whether LRCS national, transnational, intentional and extemporised acts honoured Cannes’s aims. Researchers of Italy’s, Japan’s and the UK’s prophylactic health practices can use it to see whether those polities divergently viewed Cannes and the LRCS."— First World War Studies

• Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1-Tectonic Shifts in the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement; 2-Justifying the First Humanitarian International Public Health Organisation; 3-An American Initiative or a ‘Natural Evolution’ for the Red Cross Movement?; 4-Knowledge is the Cure; 5-Designing the Organisational Structure of the Red Cross’s Peacetime Body; Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography