In this talk, Julia Irwin will discuss the history and politics of U.S. foreign disaster assistance during the 20th century. She will discuss how the U.S. government, military, and American NGOs have historically responded to major natural disasters abroad, and the diplomatic, strategic, and moral motivations that guided those efforts. She will also recount the histories of several major humanitarian operations during the early Cold War era, illustrating these themes and arguments in vivid detail.
Julia Irwin earned her Ph.D. in History, with a concentration in the History of Medicine and Science, from Yale University. Her research focuses on the place of humanitarian assistance in 20th century U.S. foreign relations and international history. Her first book, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening (Oxford University Press, 2013) is a history of U.S. foreign relief efforts in the early 20th century, particularly during the First World War and its aftermath. The dissertation on which it is based won the 2011 Betty M. Unterberger Prize for the best dissertation in diplomatic history from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Her second book, Catastrophic Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century, was published in 2024 by the University of North Carolina Press. This book examines how the U.S. government, the U.S. military, and the American voluntary sector responded to sudden disasters in other countries during the 20th century, with a focus on humanitarian emergencies caused by tropical storms, earthquakes, floods, and other natural hazards. She has published articles in such journals as the Journal of American History, Diplomatic History, and the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, as well as in edited volumes published by Oxford and Cambridge University Presses. She is a founding co-editor of the book series InterConnections: The Global 20th Century, published by University of North Carolina Press, and a founding co-editor of Journal of Disaster Studies, published by University of Pennsylvania Press.