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

London: HarperCollins. Very Good/Very Good. 1998. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 0002551411 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Frontis. Plates. 812 page clean and tight. The only authoritative and comprehensive history of the Red Cross. Caroline Moorehead is the first writer to be given unlimited access to the extensive archives in Geneva. 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. With Gustave Moynier, another Swiss, Dunant 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. To this day, the International Committee of the Red Cross remains the custodian of the Geneva Conventions, which are among the most important international instruments of humanitarian law ever formulated. 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, but highly dependent for its diplomats and staff on foreigners – all of whom are required to sign a pledge of secrecy. Caroline Moorehead is the first writer to be granted unrestricted access to the extensive archives in Geneva, which have been closed for over 100 years. They provide a unique study of the politics of conflict. Her book traces the origins of the Red Cross, its main areas of work including some of its most difficult and contentious interventions, and its work with refugees. She investigates the extraordinary secretive paranoia of the headquarters 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. She also examines the concept of neutrality central to the Red Cross and its feasibility in the modern world. .