History and Hope

History and Hope: The International Humanitarian Reader provides a better understanding—both within and outside academia—of the multifaceted demands posed by humanitarian assistance programs. The Reader is a compilation of the most important chapters in the twelve-volume International Humanitarian Affairs book series published by Fordham University Press. Each selected chapter has been edited and updated.

In addition, the series editor, Kevin M. Cahill, M.D., has written, among other chapters, an introductory essay explaining the academic evolution of the discipline of humanitarian assistance. It focuses on the “Fordham Experience”: its Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA) has developed practical programs for training fieldworkers, especially those dealing with complex emergencies following conflicts and man-made or
natural disasters.

Kevin M. Cahill, M.D. is University Professor and Director of Fordham University’s Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA). He also serves as President of the Center for International Humanitarian Cooperation (CIHC), Director of the Tropical Disease Center at Lenox Hill Hospital, Clinical Professor of Tropical Medicine and Molecular Parasitology at New York University School of Medicine, Chief Medical Advisor for Counterterrorism, NYPD, Professor of International Humanitarian Affairs at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and Senior Consultant to the United Nations Health Service. Dr. Cahill has served as Chief Advisor on Humanitarian Affairs and Public Health for three Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly.

“The pursuit of the goals of humanitarianism whether through assistance or intervention has no single way, follows no preconceived pattern. Almost by definition each experience
is different. This means, more perhaps than in any other human activity, that practitioners have to be ready to learn from experience and adapt to circumstance. As the editor, contributor and inspiration of this much needed book, Kevin M. Cahill brings the insights of a clinician in tropical medicine and public health, as well as those of an academic in humanitarian studies. Standing behind the book are twelve volumes still with much relevance to present issues into which readers can delve. Kevin M. Cahill and his distinguished fellow authors have distilled in this Reader much wisdom of lasting value.”

“This Reader is the result of the long struggle to link academia and humanitarian action. Ultimately, preserving “humanitarian space” will be imperative. Only the education of a
committed cadre of trained professionals will be able to secure the traditions of neutrality, impartiality, and independence. In this Reader the history and hope of that endeavor seem to blend and rhyme into a poetic and noble assertion, one of undoubted reality but softened by the romance of universal love. The seeds of experience will, hopefully, be allowed to blossom into wisdom. Future generations will have to continue the endless effort to relieve unnecessary suffering and promote universal justice and peace. This Reader should help guide the way forward. That surely is my intent.”