false 127508 3 When vacationing Genevan businessman Henri Dunant arrived at the resort community of Solferino, Italy, in June 1859, he certainly did not expect to find the remains of a bloody battle, concluded earlier in the day, between the Austrians and the French. The casualties, over 6,000 of them, horrified Dunant. More shocking were the survivors, left unattended on the bloody battlefield, many of them severely wounded and near death. Overcome by the brutality of the scene before him, Dunant organized and led a team of volunteers that systematically cared for the wounded. Within five years, he and four other prosperous Swiss citizens formed the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded and drafted the first Geneva Convention.<p> Renamed in 1876 the International Committee of the Red Cross, the organization today comprises 137 national societies and 250 million members. The Committee that governs it, however, has changed little since the 1870s. According to Caroline Moorehead, author of <I>Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross</I>, the power to monitor and criticize all governments of the world remains "in the hands of a small band of co-opted, elderly Swiss lawyers and bankers." While the International Committee has operated staunchly on its self-prescribed principles throughout the 20th century, many of its decisions, actions, and instances of inaction have been ambiguous and seemingly motivated by politics. In <I>Dunant's Dream</I>, Moorehead, a London-based journalist, presents a scrutinizing yet balanced history of the organization. Despite its length, <I>Dunant's Dream</I> makes no attempt to be comprehensive. Instead, Moorehead, her argument supported by unprecedented access to private Red Cross archives in Geneva, analyzes the conflicts, issues, and moral dilemmas from over 130 years of war and natural disasters that have had the most determining effect on the growth of the modern Red Cross. <I>--Bertina Loeffler Sedlack</I> 122801 1998 Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross total:6|5:1|4:1|3:4|2:0|1:0| 6 21 8 0 5 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Sat Nov 14 12:05:55 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 14 12:06:31 -0800 2009 2 0 0 false false Wed Jul 08 10:41:38 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 14:08:31 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Jun 03 17:48:17 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 03 17:48:17 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Feb 06 12:06:26 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 12:06:26 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Wed Oct 22 11:55:54 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 22 11:55:54 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Fri Apr 25 13:04:19 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 25 13:04:27 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Wed Feb 06 06:26:37 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 11 09:11:31 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Tue Jan 08 11:40:46 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 08 11:40:46 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=127508