Medical Care, Humanitarianism and Intimacy in the Long Second World ...

This book offers fresh perspectives on the history of humanitarianism and medical care during the long Second World War (1931-1953). Adopting a broad definition of humanitarianism, it addresses new themes, such as intimacy and craft therapy, and moves across scales of analysis, from the global to the local.
The book takes the war in China in 1931 as a starting point, which led to the progressive dislocation of the League of Nations. It ends with the termination of the Korean War in 1953, which represented the end of the first United Coalition and United Nations Peace enforcement operation. It contributes to the development of a theoretically informed understanding of the concept of intimacy, placing at the centre of historical attention the 'experiences' of the war for caregivers and receivers of humanitarian aid.
This volume makes an original intervention by challenging the Eurocentric chronology of the Second World War and tracing circulations of humanitarian actors, knowledge, and practices across the world from a conflict to another. In doing so, it reassesses the links between imperial and national politics and sheds new lights onto the use of humanitarianism as a diplomatic tool and instrument of 'soft power'.