Humanitarian Internationalism Under Empire

This is an important book, one that examines the evolution of the Japanese Red Cross Society using an extensive range of Japanese sources rarely cited in English language studies. Historian Michiko Suzuki deftly brings to light refreshing new perspectives on the history of the Japanese Red Cross Society, exploring its humanitarian origins and global influences from the late nineteenth century to the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. A must-read for any humanitarian scholar. -- Melanie Oppenheimer, author of <i>The Power of Humanity: 100 Years of Australian Red Cross</i> Deftly embroidering a rich array of archival materials and challenging the Eurocentric focus of previous studies, Suzuki explains the domestic and international drivers behind the growth of the Japanese Red Cross. Ironically, as Japan’s imperial reach expanded, so too did calls for humanitarian professionalism, and the author aims to unlock the forces behind why membership continued to rise through war and peace. -- Barak Kushner, author of <i>The Geography of Injustice: East Asia's Battle between Memory and History</i> Suzuki’s book provides us with a comprehensive yet nuanced account of interplay between governmental and nongovernmental entities that led to the multi-faceted evolution of Japan’s Red Cross. Situated critically in global history and historiography, this is a timely contribution to the history of humanitarianism that shines by way of its extensive archival research. -- Sho Konishi, author of <i>Anarchist Modernity: Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern Japan</i>