Julia F. Irwin, "Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century" (UNC Press, 2023)

About this episode

The episode discusses Julia F. Irwin's book on the history of US foreign disaster assistance and its role in foreign relations.

Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century (UNC Press, 2023) offers a sweeping history of US foreign disaster assistance, highlighting its centrality to twentieth-century US foreign relations. Spanning over seventy years, from the dawn of the twentieth century to the mid-1970s, it examines how the US government, US military, and their partners in the American voluntary sector responded to major catastrophes around the world. Focusing on US responses to sudden disasters caused by earthquakes, tropical storms, and floods—crises commonly known as "natural disasters"—historian Julia F. Irwin highlights the complex and messy politics of emergency humanitarian relief. Deftly weaving together diplomatic, environmental, military, and humanitarian histories, Irwin tracks the rise of US disaster aid as a tool of foreign policy, showing how and why the US foreign policy establishment first began contributing aid to survivors of international catastrophes. While the book focuses mainly on bilateral assistance efforts, it also assesses the broader international context in which the US government and its auxiliaries operated, situating their humanitarian…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Julia F. Irwin

Topics covered

• US foreign disaster assistance
• twentieth-century US foreign relations
• humanitarian aid
• natural disasters
• foreign policy
• emergency humanitarian relief

Keywords

• disaster assistance
• foreign relations
• humanitarian relief
• US government
• military aid
• international aid
• natural disasters

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: UNC Press, Yale University

More episodes of New Books in Military History

• Richard Bennet and Alexander Noyes, "War at Arm's Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance" (Yale UP, 2026) · June 12, 2026 · 40 min
• Justin F Jackson, "The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines" (UNC Press, 2025) · June 10, 2026 · 1h 17m
• Matti Friedman, "Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe" (Spiegel & Grau, 2026) · June 9, 2026 · 35 min
• Understanding Themistocles: A Discussion with Author Michael Scott · June 9, 2026 · 36 min
• Homa Katouzian, "Iran and the Revolution: A History" (Yale UP, 2026) · June 4, 2026 · 1h 0m
• Anand Gopal, "Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution" (Viking, 2026) · June 4, 2026 · 43 min