Foreign aid and state building in interwar Romania : in quest of an ideal / Doina Anca Cretu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cretu, Doina Anca, author.

Series:

Stanford studies on Central and Eastern Europe.

Stanford studies on Central and Eastern Europe

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic assistance, American--Romania--History--20th century.

Economic assistance, American.

Humanitarian assistance, American--Romania--History--20th century.

Humanitarian assistance, American.

International relief--Romania--History--20th century.

International relief.

Non-governmental organizations--Romania--History--20th century.

Non-governmental organizations.

Romania-Politics and government-1914-1944.

Romania--Politics and government--1914-1944.

Romania.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 306 pages) : illustrations, map.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2025]

Summary:

The decades following World War I were a period of political, social, and economic transformation for Central and Eastern Europe. This book considers the role of foreign aid in Romania between 1918 and 1940, offering a new history of the interrelation between state building and nongovernmental humanitarianism and philanthropy in the interwar period. Doina Anca Cretu argues that Romania was a laboratory for transnational intervention, as various state builders actively pursued, accessed, and often instrumentalized American assistance in order to accelerate reconstructive and modernizing projects after World War I. At its core, this is a study of how local views, ambitions, and practical agendas framed trajectories of humanitarian and philanthropic endeavors in postimperial Central and Eastern Europe. Conversely, it is a reflection on the ways that architects and practitioners of foreign aid sought to transfer notions of democracy, civilization, and modernity within shifting local and national contexts in the aftermath of the war and after the collapse of European empires. At the intersection of the history of interwar Europe and international philanthropy and humanitarianism, this book's innovative and explicitly transnational approach provides a new framework for understanding the contours of European nationalism in the twentieth century.

Contents:

Introduction

1. The First Humanitarian Missions

2. The Relief and the Rehabilitation of the Nation's Children

3. The "Latent Agony" of Jews

4. Philanthropy and the Rise of "Constructive" Aid

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781503641327

1503641325