Abstract
Wars make history by creating and destroying states, making and unmaking governments, shifting territorial boundaries, and validating the ideologies of the winners and discrediting those of the losers. Wars are high-risk attempts to settle disputes in decisive ways. Wars test political skills and personal courage. They unify people with the glue of cultural heroes and events, which then become milestones for nations, ethnic groups, and religions. For those in battle, wars can be, in the short run, exhilarating, mainly to the winners.
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Notes
Brian Peachment, The Red Cross Story: The Life of Heniy Dunant and the Founding of the Red Cross (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1977).
As quoted in Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Clara Barton: Professional Angel (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), p. 157.
Ian McAllister, Sustaining Relief with Development: Strategic Issues for the Red Cross and Red Crescent (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993), pp. 5–6.
Georges Willemin and Roger Heacock, The International Committee of the Red Cross (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1984), p. 21.
Christophe Swinarski, ed., Studies and Essays on International Humanitarian Law and Red Cross Principles: In Honor of Jean Pictet (Geneva: Martinus Nijoff Publishers, 1984), p. XLII.
Claudio Caratsch, “Humanitarian Design and Political Interference: Red Cross Work in the Post-Cold War Period,” International Relations, Vol. 11, (April 1993), p. 305.
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© 1997 Nicholas O. Berry
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Berry, N.O. (1997). The Main Mission: The Origins and Development of the Red Cross. In: War and the Red + Cross. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11472-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11472-3_2
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