ISS Book Series: Julia Irwin

Description:

International Security Studies continues its spring book series with a discussion of Julia Irwin’s Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century (UNC Press). Spanning over seventy years, from the dawn of the twentieth century to the mid-1970s, Catastrophic Diplomacy 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”— Irwin highlights the complex and messy politics of emergency humanitarian relief.

A historian of US foreign aid and international humanitarianism, Irwin is T. Harry Williams Professor of History at Louisiana State University. She has written extensively on US foreign relief and assistance efforts throughout the twentieth century and is the founding co-editor of The Journal of Disaster Studies. Irwin will be in conversation with Mike Brenes, Co-Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and Lecturer in History.