Julia F. Irwin

Julia F. Irwin is the T. Harry Williams Professor of History at Louisiana State University. Her research focuses on the politics of humanitarian assistance in 20th century U.S. foreign relations, international history, and medical history, in the context of both armed conflicts and disasters stemming from natural hazards. 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. Focused on the overseas aid activities of the American Red Cross, it examines the diplomatic and the cultural significance of U.S. humanitarian aid in the early twentieth century world. Her second book, Catastrophic Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century, will be published in 2023 by the University of North Carolina Press. This book examines how the U.S. government, U.S. military, and American voluntary organizations 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. Investigating the messy politics and complex power dynamics associated with these relief and reconstruction operations, the book analyzes the use of foreign disaster assistance as a tool of U.S. foreign policy. She has also published more than twenty journal articles and book chapters on the histories of U.S. foreign aid, international humanitarianism, and medical relief. Her work has appeared in such journals as Diplomatic History, The Bulletin of the History of Medicine, First World War Studies, Isis, and the Journal of American History, and in volumes published by Oxford and Cambridge University Presses and Georg Editeur. Recently, she became a founding editor of the Journal of Disaster Studies. Aimed at disaster researchers across the humanities and social sciences, this international journal seeks to advance interpretive theory, methods, and empirical research on hazards, disasters, and humanitarian governance globally. Irwin 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.