Today I welcome historian of the Red Cross and humanitarian disaster relief Julia Irwin.  
Julia Irwin is Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the department of history at the University of South Florida.  Her research focuses on the place of humanitarianism and foreign assistance in 20th century U.S. foreign relations and international history. Her first book, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening, was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press. A history of U.S. relief efforts for foreign civilians in the era of the First World War, her book analyzes both the diplomatic and the cultural significance of humanitarian aid in these years.  Currently, she is writing Catastrophic Diplomacy: A History of U.S. Responses to Global Natural Disaster.