Book contents
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume III
- General Introduction: What is America and the World?
- Introduction to Volume III
- Part I American Power in the Modern Era
- Part II Competing Perspectives
- 12 Fighting Jim Crow in a World of Empire
- 13 Wilsonianism and Its Critics
- 14 Humanitarianism and US Foreign Assistance
- 15 Women’s Politics in International Context
- 16 The October Revolution and the American Left
- 17 Sexuality and Sexual Politics
- 18 Religious World Views
- 19 Indigenous Sovereignties and Social Movements
- 20 Fascism and Nativism
- Part III The Perils of Interdependence
- Index
14 - Humanitarianism and US Foreign Assistance
from Part II - Competing Perspectives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2021
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume III
- General Introduction: What is America and the World?
- Introduction to Volume III
- Part I American Power in the Modern Era
- Part II Competing Perspectives
- 12 Fighting Jim Crow in a World of Empire
- 13 Wilsonianism and Its Critics
- 14 Humanitarianism and US Foreign Assistance
- 15 Women’s Politics in International Context
- 16 The October Revolution and the American Left
- 17 Sexuality and Sexual Politics
- 18 Religious World Views
- 19 Indigenous Sovereignties and Social Movements
- 20 Fascism and Nativism
- Part III The Perils of Interdependence
- Index
Summary
Between 1900 and 1945, the United States became one of the world’s leading providers of international humanitarian assistance. Collectively, and often in close partnership, US citizens, American voluntary associations and private firms, and US governmental and military officials delivered considerable aid abroad. This assistance – in the form of money, food, material supplies, and logistical support – reached millions of people in dozens of different countries and colonies. Among these recipients of US aid were survivors of a diverse array of humanitarian crises, including war, political and social upheaval, famine, and natural disasters. Across these forty-five years, US officials and citizens routinely imagined and defined these aid efforts as untarnished demonstrations of American goodwill. The reality, however, was more complex. Domestic and international politics, cultural assumptions and racial stereotypes, and uneven economic and power dynamics between American donors and aid recipients, as this chapter will show, regularly limited the humanitarian and diplomatic potential of US foreign assistance.
- Type
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of America and the World , pp. 337 - 359Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022