Who better than Henry Dunant to shake the reader with a gripping account of the suffering of the thousands of wounded soldiers left untended after the battle of Solferino? In this work, Dunant succeeds in taking the vital step between that vision of devastation and an impassioned appeal on behalf of the victims of combat. The horrors witnessed by Dunant after the battle of Solferino on 24 June 1859 and his ensuing humanitarian appeal are at the origin of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, which today comprises 186 National Societies with millions of members, as well as the two international bodies – the ICRC and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. This is a truly poignant book.
